Tarsus to distribute Brocade HBAs

9 February 2009

Tarsus Technologies has announced the widening of its enterprise solutions focus with the news that it has secured the rights to distribute Brocade switches and host bus adapters (HBAs) in South Africa.

Greg Pothitos, HP ESS business unit manager at Tarsus, says that this is an interesting announcement, given that Tarsus has already been dealing indirectly with Brocade products over the past couple of years, as they often form the basis of products from HP, IBM and other large enterprise computing vendors.

"Our representation of HP and IBM has previously given us access to certain Brocade products," he says, "but never as complete-a-range of solutions as we now have access to.

"Given that these solutions were generally also branded HP or IBM, we found it difficult to enter customer accounts that weren't already IBM- or HP-loyal. "By having Brocade solutions on board, we now have that capability," he adds.

"We are very pleased to have Tarsus on board as this relationship enables Brocade to access a broader segment of system integrators in the South African market," comments Nick Pateman, territory manager: South Africa & Africa,at Brocade. "Brocade's HBAs deliver a strategic advantage to users, offering greater end-to-end features and improved overall management. Leveraging intelligence from our 4Gb/8Gb Fibre Channel SAN switch portfolio, they [Brocade's HBAs] significantly reduce complexity in virtualised environments."

Pothitos says that the timing for this distribution agreement is also extremely apt, since it comes around at the same time that Brocade has entered the HBA market.

"As a well-recognised name in the storage infrastructure game, the market will no doubt be extremely keen to get its hands on Brocade HBAs - that in itself will allow us to make great inroads with the brand," Pothitos adds.

While Pothitos believes that Tarsus can do extremely well with the new brand on board, he does believe that the market will be slower than usual, now that numerous economic factors are beginning to take their toll.

"Hopefully, however, with our complete range of storage solutions we will be better-positioned than our peers to provide the kind of solutions our customers crave," he concludes.