Magirus First Cisco Specialty Data Centre Distributor

Magirus has become Cisco’s first Specialty Data Centre Distributor in Western Europe.

At the same time it has announced the creation of a Data Centre Division. Also, it plans to focus on developing and recruiting more resellers and expects to boost revenues by an additional 20% within the next two years.

The new European Data Centre Division, which complements Magirus’ existing Secure Networking Division, will help Magirus and Cisco resellers to exploit the advantages of the ‘unified data centre.’ This involves converging network centric server technologies with virtualisation and storage, to create a unified offering.

By creating the new Division, Magirus aims to provide greater choice to existing resellers as well as a migration path to unified data centre technologies. These will form the basis of future data centre and private cloud deployments.

Advantages to end users include:

• lower capital outlays;
• simplified management;
• increased energy efficiency; and
• reduced operating costs.

Cisco Speciality Data Centre Distributor              
The new specialty distribution agreement will be mutually beneficial for Cisco and Magirus. It gives Cisco access to a leading European distributor with established strengths in virtualisation and storage: elements considered vital to Cisco’s unified data centre strategy. At the same time, Magirus will benefit from Cisco’s converged networking and data centre technology portfolio that will help enable it to attract new resellers and present new sales opportunities.

Thierry Drilhon, vice-president for Worldwide Channels, European markets at Cisco said: “We selected Magirus due to its strengths in virtualisation and storage, its European reach, and its proven track record in data centre and highly secure networking. Magirus offers sophisticated consultancy, training and services skills that are needed to equip partners to reap the benefits of the transition to the virtualised data centre. Magirus was the natural choice for us.”

As a Cisco Data Centre Speciality Distributor, Magirus will strengthen further its data centre channel by attracting Cisco resellers and new resellers to its established base of more than 6,000 channel partners. In addition Magirus will evolve its sales force – currently operating in specialist centres of expertise for virtualisation, storage and secure networking – to sell the complete unified data centre offering.

Also, Magirus will augment its European Technology Logistics Centre in Strasbourg, France to provide a tailored data centre assembly facility, including design, configuration, and assembly for resellers. This will be the only one of its kind in Europe where resellers can stage and configure unified data centre solutions prior to shipment.

Magirus has built up ‘eco-systems’ of virtualisation, storage, and secure networking vendors and offers a comprehensive portfolio in Europe, including training and professional services. This combination of skills will be key to helping resellers and their customers implement and benefit from the strategic advantages of new virtual data centre technologies.

Christian Magirus, executive vice-president & COO at Magirus said: “This strategic relationship is an extension of our existing strategy to help resellers and their customers gain competitive advantage by embracing emerging technologies. We want to de-risk entry to these markets and provide end-customers with more choice.” He added: “We now offer a total data centre capability to assist resellers and their customers to evolve from capital-intensive, premise based data centres to hybrid models involving a combination of physical, virtualised and private cloud computing. Eventually this will extend to external cloud solutions where computing becomes a utility.”

Data Centre Focus
Under the new distribution agreement, Magirus is authorised to distribute Cisco’s entire portfolio in all countries of the European Economic Area, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

Although Magirus will offer access to the entire portfolio, the focus of the distribution agreement will be Cisco’s data centre products and in particular:

• Cisco Nexus range of switches, which unify both LAN and SAN connectivity in the data centre.
• Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) range of blade and rack-mounted servers that are optimised for virtual environments in the data centre.
• Cisco Application Networking Services (ANS) including: Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) and Application Control Engine (ACE) products that accelerate end-point access in the data centre.
• Cisco Multilayer Director Switches (MDS), which bridge traditional SANs and unified Nexus switches for migration to unified data centres.