Science and Technology Science and Technology
Wed, February 18, 2009

BLADE Network Technologies: BLADE Network Technologies Brings "Virtual, Cooler, Easier" Top of Rack Switches to Data


Published on 2009-02-18 06:10:55, Last Modified on 2009-02-18 06:12:34 - Market Wire
  Print publication without navigation


SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwire - February 18, 2009) - BLADE Network Technologies, Inc. (BLADE), the trusted leader in data center networking, announced that it is providing its "Virtual, Cooler and Easier" [ RackSwitch™ family of Ethernet data center switches ] to solution providers through its new [ RackSwitch Solution Partner™ Program ].

BLADE's new channel offering is designed to attract RackSwitch solution providers worldwide. Solution providers can apply on the web site to become an Authorized or Champion Partner at [ www.bladenetwork.net/reseller ]. Benefits of partnership include deal registration, which rewards the partner's investment in developing new business with an assured margin.

"We have designed our new RackSwitch Solution Partner Program to provide incentives for partners to build a trusted, mutually profitable relationship with our company," said Shailesh Naik, Vice President of Global Sales at BLADE Network Technologies. "By complementing partners' existing server, storage and virtualization offerings with our innovative data center networking technology, global solution providers will be able to meet their data center customers' needs affordably and efficiently."

According to Tracy Hickox, Vice President of North American Sales for BLADE, "Our new deal registration program rewards a partner's efforts to position our technology with their customers by providing incremental discounts. We look forward to partnering with solution providers to provide low latency, lossless, low power, highly available and scalable data center networking."

Benefits of Partnering with BLADE

BLADE's products serve a rapidly growing market, with 50-percent year over year growth predicted for server consolidation, cloud networking and HPC (High Performance Computing) architectures. BLADE is a growing company with [ awards ] including the Red Herring Global 100, Frost & Sullivan 2008 North America Product Innovation of the Year and more.


All RackSwitch Solution Partners receive benefits including:

 -- Upfront discounts -- Deal registration -- Demo equipment program -- Free online training -- Partner extranet -- Competitive bid desk 

Additional benefits (by invitation) for RackSwitch Champion Partners include:

 -- MDF eligibility -- Joint sales engagements -- On-site sales and technical training -- Pre-sales sales engineer support 

What Partners Are Saying

"We are delighted to welcome BLADE Network Technologies into Bell Micro's portfolio of best-of-breed high-performance 10 Gigabit Ethernet solutions for High Performance Computing clusters, IP storage, IPTV and Web 2.0 applications," said Gary Gammon, Senior Vice President, Enterprise Marketing, Bell Microproducts (PINKSHEETS: [ BELM ]) "BLADE and Bell Micro share common values such as customer satisfaction and providing innovative, trusted solutions for today's growing data center needs."

"At HPM Networks, HP's Elite Exclusive Platinum partner and a member of the VAR 500, we are always striving to rise above the traditional definitions of what a VAR can offer. By incorporating BLADE's RackSwitch products we are continuing to secure the edge we bring in providing real network architecture solutions," said Charles Miano, Vice President of HPM Networks, in Fremont, CA. "BLADE's RackSwitch products round out our offerings that include HP BladeSystem and VMware, and their new channel program provides us with the bottom-line incentive to develop new business. We are delighted to accept BLADE's invitation to become a RackSwitch Champion Partner."

BLADE's Data Center Networking Advantages

BLADE's "virtual, cooler and easier" Gigabit and 10 Gigabit intelligent Ethernet networking solutions for data center environments, add network intelligence to blade and rack mount servers, while enhancing performance and providing high availability, scalability, manageability and security to the data center environment.

Customers who add BLADE switches to their infrastructure will realize significant reduction in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for their data center infrastructure.

RackSwitch products from BLADE take a breakthrough [ "Rackonomics" ] approach to reduce the total cost of ownership of data center infrastructures, overcome network overload and enable scale-out data center economies. Data center architects can standardize on a unified and affordable rack-level network infrastructure to provision and scale out Web 2.0 environments, high-performance clusters, cloud computing and virtualized data centers.

About BLADE's RackSwitch, Virtualization and Management Solutions

BLADE's new [ 1U RackSwitch product family ] extends virtualization by mirroring the benefits of server virtualization within the network at the rack level, saves energy through rack-friendly cooling and alleviates management pain by removing complexity through simplified management and fabric convergence.


RackSwitch products are:

 -- Virtual: BLADE's networking virtualization switch-resident software, SmartConnect™, is an innovative rack-level network virtualization solution. Incorporated in SmartConnect, VMready™ monitors the creation and movement of virtual machines, and securely moves the network along with the VM. -- Cooler: BLADE's RackSwitch is the first server and storage rack- optimized switch with airflow to match server and storage racks, not wiring closets. -- Easier: BLADE enables enterprises to converge their datacenter fabric on 10 Gigabit Ethernet, avoiding dealing with multiple networks, and leveraging datacenter personnel's familiarity with Ethernet technology and tools. With BLADEHarmony™ Manager, administrators can centrally manage thousands of BLADE switches with the click of a mouse. 

About BLADE Network Technologies

BLADE Network Technologies is the leading supplier of Gigabit and 10G Ethernet network infrastructure solutions that reside in blade servers and "scale-out" server and storage racks. BLADE's new "Virtual, Cooler and Easier" RackSwitch family demonstrates the promise of "Rackonomics" -- a revolutionary approach for scaling out data center networks to drive down total cost of ownership. The company's customers include over half of the Fortune 500 across 26 industry segments, representing an installed base of over 220,000 network switches and over 5 million switch ports connecting more than 1,100,000 servers. For more information, visit [ www.bladenetwork.net ].

BLADE Network Technologies, the BLADE logo, BLADEHarmony, RackSwitch, RackSwitch Solution Partner, SmartConnect and VMready are trademarks of BLADE Network Technologies. All other names or marks are property of their respective owners.

Contributing Sources