Big Blue announced the IBM Storwize V3700 this morning, a scaled-down configuration of its enterprise storage virtualization system that takes the core features and makes them available for SMBs.

The V3700 can house up to 120 drives with a maximum capacity of 180 terabytes. The system can include up to 8 gigabytes of memory and only supports 200 gigabyte and 400 gigabyte SSDs, as well as 2.5 and 3.5 inch near-line SAS drives that hold one terabyte and three terabytes, respectively.

The V3700 is 2U dual-controller system with a few perks, including the FlashCopy backup tool, OpenStack Nova integration and optional 8 Gbps Fibre Channel or 10 GbE iSCSI connectivity.

The bundle, which is available at a starting price of $11,000, runs in conjunction with IBM’s SAN Volume Controller (SVC), a solution that maps virtualized volumes to physical storage.

“The IBM Storwize V3700 builds on IBM’s successful SAN Volume Controller technology,” said Dave Vellante, the co-founder of the Wikibon Project. “The key is IBM has brought the product down market and made it kindergarten-proof for the SMB crowd that doesn’t have the deep storage skill sets of larger companies.”

Enterprises are adopting virtualization for the sake of cost-efficiency and added business agility, and SMBs are doing the same. The big vendors, including IBM, are addressing this overwhelming demand. A few months ago EMC unveiled the VNXe3150, an entry level storage system that can accommodate up to 50 virtual machines. The firm is touting a 50 percent bigger bang for the buck across the board with the new box, which starts at $10,000.

Cisco also had a big update recently. Last week the company announced a new centralized management console for its UCS systems that automates migration and deployment.