Intel has signed a multi-year OEM and technology agreement to sell EMC storage solutions through its resellers and distributors.

The deal should help EMC break into the notoriously difficult SMB storage sector by making its product available under partner branding that has a high level of trust.

Intel’s 160,000 distributors and resellers will be able to use own private brands and labels on the Clariion AX150 networked storage systems.

The new EMC systems run on Intel processors, which will help EMC get its pricing down to SMB levels. As part of the new relationship, EMC and Intel have agreed to future collaboration that will see Intel design its processors to suit the needs of networked storage systems.

The Intel storage system based on EMC Clariion AX150 technology will be blessed with the catchy name SSR212PP. It should become available to customers by May this year and will house up to 12 SATA II drives in a 2U rack mountable enclosure, supporting up to six TB in a single array.

“EMC and Intel are sharply focused on driving platform innovation and efficiencies that solve the IT challenges of small and medium businesses in today’s competitive business environment,” said Hans Geyer, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Storage Group. “By working with EMC to deliver standards-based storage platforms, we are bringing leading enterprise storage value and technology to Intel customers worldwide.”

Joel Schwartz, EMC senior vice president and general manager, EMC Clariion, added, “We expect that the reach of Intel’s channel will help give EMC an edge in serving a much broader set of SMBs in emerging markets around the globe. This collaboration also provides the foundation for future engineering collaboration between EMC and Intel for this growing market segment.”

The storage systems will be offered in single- or dual-controller configurations with redundant power and cooling. DAS or SAN connectivity is supported via iSCSI or Fibre Channel.