Thirteen reference architectures covering what the companies believe will provide optimal coverage of the market from SMB through the enterprise will be available to joint channel partners.
Schneider Electric, which owns APC by Schneider Electric power solutions, has announced an extension of their relationship with long-time partner Cisco which will make reference designs available that integrate APC solutions with Cisco HyperFlex HCI [hyper-converged infrastructure].
“We have had a number of partnerships over the years with Cisco, including a three-way one with APC, Cisco and VMware several years ago, but this is the first iteration of the partnership around the Cisco HCI,” said David O Reilly, VP and GM of the Secure Power Division at Schneider Electric Canada.
O’Reilly indicated that they expect a broad demand for these joint pre-engineered HCI solutions from all kinds of organizations.
“If you had asked me about that two years ago, I would have anticipated these would have gone mainly to SMB in onesies and twosies,” O’Reilly said. “But today we are seeing a real mix across the board. We are seeing some with that traditional demand of 2-5 locations, and these designs will deliver on that. But we are also seeing demand from medium and large size organizations, as brick and mortar retailers reorient themselves digitally. We are seeing similar things in other verticals like food and beverage, and also telcos. They are all developing edge computing solutions, as the focus is increasingly on moving compute from the core to the edge to reduce latencies.”
O’Reilly said that Cisco is an ideal partner to reach this growing demand at the edge.
David O Reilly, VP and GM of the Secure Power Division at Schneider Electric Canada
“Cisco is in all of these markets,” he said. “In addition to being a strong enterprise vendor, Cisco has had a longstanding focus on that small to medium marketplace. Like APC, they also place a strong emphasis on the value-added partner network. Our joint partners are looking for simplicity, with multiple SKUs that provide clients with a variety of options. Enterprises want SKUs that can be highly customized, but which are also able to be delivered to tight timelines. Smaller businesses tend to want standard out-of-the box solutions that are simpler and cost effective. These joint solutions with Cisco deliver on all of this and provide either a standard or a customized solution. It’s all about effectively addressing that edge computing trend in the marketplace.”
The companies have 13 pre-engineered designs for HyperFlex ready to go.
“We think that this is the optimal number to cover the entire market, from a standardization perspective,” O’Reilly indicated.
“We are super-excited about this,” he concluded. “It is at the right time in the market. People have been talking a lot about edge computing for a couple of years, but it is now getting strong traction. And we also have the right partner to do this.”
