Hyperconverged infrastructure and virtual storage software developer StorMagic CEO Susan Odle discusses the company’s focus on distributed edge environments and its new partnership with Mako Networks to help channel partners build secure, resilient IT deployments for retail operations featuring distributed and remote IT environments.
Hyperconverged infrastructure technology developer StorMagic Tuesday said it has signed a strategic agreement with Mako Networks under which the two companies will work with partners to build resilient and manageable IT environments for remote and distributed locations.
Susan Odle, CEO of Bristol, U.K.-based StorMagic, told CRN in an exclusive meeting that her company is focused squarely on the distributed edge, where customers need affordable, easy-to-manage virtualization that can scale across remote sites. She positioned StorMagic as edge-first rather than data center-oriented, with a strategy built around choice for customers and channel partners through its SvHCI hyperconverged infrastructure and SvSAN virtual storage technologies.
The new StorMagic-Mako technology partnership targets a range of retail operations where edge infrastructure, secure networking, small margins, and limited local IT support meet, Odle said. The result is technology that fully addresses the concerns of business owners with edge environments, she said.
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“There’s an alignment of understanding how retail, quick-serve, gas, and convenience stores operate, and the thin margins and the lack of physical support as well as bandwidth issues in that space, and the fact that those stores operate in very small towns that do not have big bandwidth, as well as in cities with a diversity of connectedness,” she said.
Odle said StorMagic has networking capabilities in SvHCI, but Mako adds deeper PCI-compliant networking expertise and control-plane capabilities. The alliance, which goes into effect immediately, is meant to help partners combine proven edge technologies rather than follow a dictated stack.
“The way I would frame it is, StorMagic is very focused on continuing to develop our ecosystem and our technology partnerships that give our channel partners optionality in building solutions that have been proven to work by the vendors through the partnerships,” she said.
Odle also talked about StorMagic’s competitive environment, citing Scale Computing as her company’s closest direct competitor while saying VMware is different because StorMagic can coexist with VMware environments as customers and partners weigh Broadcom’s business terms.
“You know, the world has not had an issue with [VMware’s] technology,” she said. “They’ve had an issue with the business terms. That’s very interesting. Are they our competitor? I think we can coexist with VMware and those customers that choose to do that. We can offer hyperconverged storage, give them some diversity in that environment, which is what we’ve done for 20 years.”
There’s a lot going on with the hyperconverged infrastructure business and at StorMagic. To learn more, read CRN’s complete conversation with Odle, which has been lightly edited for clarity.
How do you define StorMagic?
StorMagic is purpose-built for solving complex problems simply at the edge, the distributed edge. We are 100 percent focused on virtualization that is easy to deploy, easy to manage, and scales from a single node to as many nodes as a company may operate. We do not over-embellish our target market. There’s a pain point of affordable, value-based virtualization software that understands how operations take place at the edge, and we’re going to continue to build out our platform to address the needs of the distributed edge.
Who would you say StorMagic’s primary competitors are?
I think Scale Computing is our closest direct competitor. There’s no doubt about that. It’s an evolving terrain. I think that the difference when you think about edge computing, it’s not even just the edge. Some organizations still have a cloud-only mentality, and I think that’s shifting. Hybrid cloud is becoming the new norm, along with thinking about deploying cloud workloads where it makes sense, where you can have some downtime and it’s not going to kill you. And then there are other workloads where downtime is not an option. In the space around Mako Networks, when you’re thinking about retailers and convenience stores, every single mini transaction is critical, and so for those workloads, on-prem is mandatory.
I don’t want to name a whole slew of competitors in that ecosystem of cloud and hybrid and on-prem. There are some great technologies out there. But directly, for sure, Scale Computing is our biggest competitor when it comes to on-prem options for virtualization at the distributed edge.
What about Broadcom’s VMware?
I think that we coexist with VMware, and the reality is they’ve made some announcements recently about a new version of vSphere standard coming out that they haven’t formally released, but they’ve made the market aware that it’s coming. There will be some customers that are going to praise that announcement and will stick with VMware, and our SvSAN converged storage for those environments that stick with vSphere will continue to operate in those environments and give customers choice to diversify their stack and say, “We’re going to stay with VMware and look at StorMagic for storage.” VMware is a great product. I think what Broadcom has done is more on the business terms that may no longer work for [some partners and] customers because of cost implications or because of uncertainty around the stability of whatever they may negotiate this year. Maybe it’s going to be completely different.
You know, the world has not had an issue with [VMware’s] technology. They’ve had an issue with the business terms. That’s very interesting. Are they our competitor? I think we can coexist with VMware and those customers that choose to do that. We can offer hyperconverged storage, give them some diversity in that environment, which is what we’ve done for 20 years.
Do you have a technology partnership with VMware?
We are part of their technology partner system. One of the things they did is, they said if you can’t provide high availability storage, we’re not actually going to call you officially supported. We do provide high availability, so we’re still part of what they consider to be a supported partner. I don’t see that changing.
Our whole mandate as a business is optionality. If you want to go with a fully integrated hyperconverged stack, our SvHCI is proven in market. We’ll continue to share stories of customers making the move to SvHCI. But if you decide you want to go with a diversified HCI stack, we have SvSAN that provides that optionality for you to pick Hyper-V, Proxmox, or VMware, and apply our storage layer to those environments, or go full HCI with SvHCI. For all of those possibilities, we’re here for customers to help them.
How about Nutanix as a competitor or partner?
They’re not a competitor. Nutanix is awesome. I think what they’re doing is incredible. They’re in our world. We are going to be releasing on-prem edge control fleet management in the fall, and the only other vendor in our space that has that is Nutanix. So they’re bleeding edge, but they’re big and heavy. They’re really well suited for the data center. Their footprint is so much more significant. We see Nutanix in the data center and SvHCI at the edge. Those two things can work together. It’s an economical question with Nutanix. We’re not direct competitors at all. Our technologies are different. Some customers deploying it everywhere is going to make sense, and if they’re willing to pay for that, great, then fill your boots. But in a world where you want to get some economies of scale, you could look at Nutanix in the data center and SvHCI at the edge.
“Fill your boots.” Love that phrase. I may have to use that phrase in the future. So, StorMagic today introduced a new technology partnership with Mako Networks. How would you describe Mako Networks?
They’re purpose-built, like we are, for the distributed edge with a focus on retail. We work in other areas. There’s an alignment of understanding how retail, quick-serve, gas, and convenience stores operate, and the thin margins and the lack of physical support as well as bandwidth issues in that space, and the fact that those stores operate in very small towns that do not have big bandwidth, as well as in cities with a diversity of connectedness. The fact that Mako has operated and been purpose-built in that that environment makes it a perfect fit for us from a partnership point of view. Mako owning the networking piece and us owning the stack, the infrastructure stack, I think it’s a really good partnership. We understand the markets where we operate, and we have that legacy experience. So together, we’re just offering more purpose-built virtualization to customers to give them a faster way to get to their operational benefits.
Prior to the new Mako relationship, did StorMagic have a networking component in SvHCI?
We do, but you can’t compare that to what Mako does in terms of its full networking capabilities as well as the control plane from a networking point of view. It’s not the same thing. But when you build the two together, you get more than you would get from any one vendor. We provide the [networking] component built into our HCI stack, but when we think about PCI-compliant networking capabilities, Mako’s bringing a level of depth of expertise that’s not our primary IP (intellectual property).
Is there any integration required now to bring the Mako and StorMagic technologies together, or is it just a simple connector?
We have APIs to enable that, and every customer is different. With this new partnership, our partners that represent both technologies, or Mako themselves, or customers themselves will be able to bring those pieces together. That’s what APIs are for. And when we’re thinking about the distributed edge, every deployment is a little bit different. The thing that we have to bring as vendors is the ability to talk, and it’s all about the APIs and making sure that those things work. And obviously, the announcement is validation that we can address the needs of the market with our technology stacks.
StorMagic is 100 percent channel, right?
Yes.
How about Mako?
I think that’s a good question for Mako.
With the new partnership, how does the sales motion work? Will StorMagic partners be representing both Mako and StorMagic? Do StorMagic’s partners need to get certified for Mako?
The way I would frame it is, StorMagic is very focused on continuing to develop our ecosystem and our technology partnerships that give our channel partners optionality in building solutions that have been proven to work by the vendors through the partnerships, so they can go to their customers and say: Take these pieces from these different ecosystem vendors that you know—backup, hardware, networking, all the different pieces that are required to operationalize a store—and give them options. That’s what we’re doing. It’s not about dictation. It’s about giving the channel as many proven assets as possible so they can build solutions their customers need.
When will this be available to channel partners?
Effective immediately. Scott Mann, our senior vice president of global sales, is the lead on this with our sales team, and he’s got a longstanding working relationship with Mako Networks. I think he’s already pushing this pretty heavily with our team in terms of making sure our channel partners are well aware of what’s going on with Mako Networks. It’s an exciting partnership. It addresses a massive piece of secure networking in addition to the HCI stack, so it’s effective immediately. Let’s figure out together what the market needs, what our customers want, and build those and get some quotes going. That’s really the agenda for everyone.
Does StorMagic have similar relationships with other networking vendors?
Not to the degree that we are launching with Mako. We have soft relationships with other networking vendors. But we believe at this point in time that this is a leading relationship for Mako and StorMagic. We want to put the investment in that’s going to help us both succeed, and we’re getting that same level of commitment from Mako. This is important, and we believe we can do great things and market together with our channel partners.
Is there any equity investment on the part of either party in this relationship?
Not at all. [It’s a] pure technology alliance with a very strong conviction that we can do great things together with our channel partners, and the timing is right for us to make some noise.
Is there anything else that you’d like to add?
The last thing I would say is we are being very thoughtful about the partnerships that we’re making. [For the purpose-built edge business,] understanding and background of the technology vendors that we partner with is critical. We’re not trying to be the data center and the edge. We are the edge. And we align with partners that also understand that and have the years and depth of experience. That is a foundation of how we partner. So if channel partners and customers see value in that depth of experience and focus on the edge, they really need to look at this partnership.
