CRN - April 2022 - Issue 1410

ISSUE 1410 • APRIL 2022

crn.com

INTERNET OF THINGS 50 Key connections PAGE 50

STORAGE 100

Putting data first PAGE 56

TECH ELITE 250

Their level best PAGE 66

ServiceNow:

The Path To $15 Billion SerivceNow CEO Bill McDermott says partners are ‘absolutely essential’ to his strategy to position his company at the top of the Software-as-a-Service market.

Here’s how he plans to get there.

PAGE 8

PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE The glue that holds relationships together PAGE 16

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Master Leadership.

Leave Inspired.

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Computer Reseller News

April 2022

Columns 5 The Final Cut

By Steven Burke

70

On The Record

By Robert Faletra

Features 6 Tech 10

Check out these 10 mobile phones and tablets that are reshaping how business users interact with technology.

ServiceNow:

The Path To $15 Billion ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott says partners are ‘absolutely essential’ to his company cementing its position as a SaaS powerhouse.

56 Storage 100

The storage world is evolving from a focus on speeds and feeds to business outcomes.

Here are 100 forwardthinking vendors.

Partner Program Spotlight

66 Tech Elite 250

The highest training and certification levels put solution providers on the road to success.

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CRN (ISSN 1539-7343), also known as Computer Reseller News, is published 14 times a year (February, April, June, August, October, December and 8 Special Issues) by The Channel Company, One Research Drive, Suite 410A, Westborough, MA 01581, and is free to qualified management personnel at companies involved in the reselling/distribution of computers/ networking systems, software and services. One-year subscription rates for all others in the United States are $209.00; Canada $234.00. Overseas air mail rates are: Europe $380.00; Mexico/South America $380.00; Africa $380.00; Asia/Australia $480.00. Please mail all subscription inquiries along with checks or money orders to The Channel Company, Dept: CRN Subscriptions, One Research Drive, Suite 410A, Westborough, MA 01581.

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8

Connecting The IoT Dots

16

The movers and shakers in the Internet of Things arena are making the connections necessary to take the market to new heights. Here are 50 vendors spanning connectivity, hardware, industrial IoT, security and software that solution providers should know.

The relationships between vendors and their partners rest on the quality of the programs that tie everything together. Our Partner Program Guide highlights those efforts.

50

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Visit CRN.com/40years today for special anniversary features and videos

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APRIL 2022

THE FINAL CUT

Compensation Matters MISSING OUT ON THE EVERYTHING-AS-A-SERVICE BOOM

By Steven Burke THERE IS no greater channel maxim than compensation drives behavior. That age-old rule applies to every job in every industry, but in the channel it is absolutely sacrosanct.

As the pandemic has accelerated the channel’s move to Everything as a Service, there are some vendors stuck in pre-pandemic mode with compensation models that have not kept pace with the demand. These vendor channel programs and compensation models favor direct sales and are holding back the Everything-as-a-Service model.

In that model, customers are looking to strategic service providers to deliver a single monthly invoice where they pay only for what they use across their entire hybrid IT estate, including the public cloud.

Ironically, public cloud providers are at the top of the list of vendors holding back the Everything-as-a-Service model with their online marketplaces. The problem is that these public cloud provider marketplaces have in many cases not worked out ISV models that take into account the solution power of strategic service providers.

The public cloud providers have come up with revenue share models with ISVs but have failed in many cases to build compensation models that reward strategic service providers delivering Everything as a Service. They have flat out ignored the scale and solution muscle that strategic service providers bring to the game.

One reason certainly is the huge profit and high profit margins these public cloud providers are delivering quarter after quarter.

But here’s a message for them: Those profits and margins would be even higher with the full weight of the strategic service provider model behind their marketplaces.

It is not just the public cloud providers holding back the Everything-as-a-Service model, however. There are many ISVs and Software-as-a-Service providers that are sticking to the old subscription model and refusing to let partners provide a single invoice.

A heated market with out-of-control demand from customers looking to accelerate their digital transformation amid supply constraints also is fueling the failure to incent strategic service providers with appropriate compensation models.

The other side of the compensation conundrum is that many vendors have put in place direct sales models that incent the vendor sales reps to go direct. That is a model that has failed time and time again. It is basic economics. Go it alone, you lose. Build out a scalable channel model, and you put in place a force multiplier that drives huge growth.

The channel model has driven every major technology shift since the PC boom.

Those vendors that leverage the channel always end up taking market share from those vendors that sideline it.

The bottom line: Vendors that put in place compensation models that incent partners to drive the Everything-as-a-Service revolution working hand in hand with their direct sales teams are going to see big market-share gains. Those that don’t will fi nd themselves on the sidelines of what is by all accounts the biggest market opportunity of our time. ■

See the evolution of the channel and other great anniversary features and videos at CRN.com/40years

BACKTALK: Are vendor compensation models holding back the Everything-as-aService model? Let me know what you think at sburke@thechannelcompany.com.

APRIL 2022

5

T E C H 1 0 : MOBILIT Y

10 New Take-Charge Mobile Phones And Tablets For the worker on the go, here are the top mobile devices that are reshaping how we interact with technology whether in the office or just waiting for the train.

By Shane Snider

1. APPLE IPHONE 13 PRO MAX

6. APPLE IPHONE SE 2022

Apple’s latest flagship phone shows why it is one of the top dogs in the smartphone market. Sporting the longest-lasting and biggest battery in iPhone’s history, a 6.7inch screen and plenty of specs to brag about, the 13 Pro Max set a new smartphone standard when released in 2021. The phone’s massive 160.84 x 78.08 x 7.65mm footprint is a pocket-killer, but it adds an excellent OLED display, 120Hz refresh rate and enough battery life to support the phone’s four-camera arsenal.

The latest entry-level iPhone SE plays to its strengths. It packs in the zippy A15 Bionic processor and 64 GB of storage—basically the same specs as found in the iPhone 13 line. But what users gain in performance they lose in display size—the SE uses the large-bezel throwback 4.7-inch retina screen that may have some squinting to read their texts. But it provides an entry level for the iPhone line and has been a big hit for Apple.

7. LENOVO YOGA TAB 13 2. SAMSUNG GALAXY S22 ULTRA With the Galaxy S22 Ultra, Samsung packs an unreal 108-megapixel main camera, a jaw-dropping 100X “space zoom” feature, impressive nighttime optics and a host of other visual treats. The Ultra also makes a welcome nod to the popular-but-discontinued Galaxy Note with support for the S Pen.

3. APPLE IPAD PRO M1 The iPad Pro M1 comes dressed to impress with a 12.9-inch XDR display and is configurable up to 16 GB of RAM and 2 TB of internal storage. Apple is using a new technology called mini-LED, and the XDR display pumps out resolution of 2,732 x 2,048 pixels. Supporting a 120Hz refresh rate, the 12.9-inch display should offer one of the best visual experiences on the market.

4. SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB S8 ULTRA The Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra brings the ultrawide viewing experience to the tablet space. At 14.6 inches, it’s certainly a gigantic entry in the tablet space. And at 1.4 pounds, it’s not exactly a light device, either. But it does maintain a svelte profile at just 5.5mm thin. Making use of Samsung’s excellent AMOLED display, the Ultra shines with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate. Add in a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, up to 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB of storage and a massive 11,400 mAh battery, and you have a serious contender for top tablet on the market.

5. GOOGLE PIXEL 6 The Google Pixel 6 stands toe-to-toe with flagship releases from the two top dogs in smartphones. The Pixel 6 might lure users with with its Tensor chip, which lets the camera recognize text and translate it. A 50-megapixel camera, 4,614 mAh battery and 6.4-inch OLED screen should be plenty to remove any doubt that Google came to play.

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APRIL 2022

The Lenovo Yoga Tab 13 is not out to be the sleekest tablet but it packs a great screen and is powerful enough to take on the most demanding tasks. The 13-inch LCD provides resolution of 2,160 x 1,350, which is not quite as crisp as Apple’s tablet displays, but plenty good. With 128 GB of storage, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2, file transfers and storage should be a breeze. The tablet also supports Lenovo’s excellent Active Pen 2.

8. APPLE IPAD AIR M1 Apple’s iPad Air M1 has more in common with its Pro sibling thanks to the excellent silicon Apple is producing. With the same design as the revamped iPad Air 2020, it’s form is familiar and comfortable. For a midrange iPad, it sure does pack a wallop.

There are some other performance trade-offs, including a 60Hz refresh rate instead of the Pro’s 120Hz and it lacks the cool new Mini LED tech.

9. SAMSUNG GALAXY Z FLIP 3 The Galaxy Z Flip 3 is unbelievably portable with folded dimensions of just 2.4 x 2.8 x 0.63-0.67 inches. Even unfolded, the phone is easily handled and measures 6.5 x 2.8 x 0.27 inches at just 6.5 ounces. Users also get Samsung’s excellent AMOLED display measuring 6.7 inches with a 120Hz refresh rate and 2,640 x 1,080 resolution. It sports a Snapdragon 888 and 8 GB of RAM, making it no slouch in the speed department.

10. MICROSOFT SURFACE PRO 8 Microsoft’s flagship tablet got a long overdue refresh in late 2021 with the Surface Pro 8. Adding in an updated chassis with a new graphite color gives the new Surface a modern look without sacrificing utility.

Smaller bezels allow for an 11 percent larger display, giving the Surface 8 a 13-inch display with a resolution of 2,880 x 1,920. Add in an available 120Hz refresh rate, and it’s a formidable viewing experience. ■

2022 EVENTS CALENDAR MARCH

AUGUST

2/27-3/1

XChange March Gaylord Texan • Dallas, TX

2/28-3/1

XChange SLED Gaylord Texan • Dallas, TX

3/21-22

Midsize Enterprise Summit: IT Security Grand Hyatt • Tampa, FL

8/21-23

XChange August Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center • Denver, CO

SEPTEMBER 9/18-20

Midsize Enterprise Summit: Fall Red Rock Casino, Resort & Spa • Las Vegas, NV

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Midsize Enterprise Summit: Spring Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate • Orlando, FL

OCTOBER 10/10-11

Best of Breed Conference Loews Atlanta Hotel • Atlanta, GA

10/23-25

NexGen Conference Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld • Orlando, FL

MAY 5/16-17

Women of the Channel Leadership Summit WEST Omni La Costa Resort & Spa • Carlsbad, CA

DECEMBER 12/5-6

Women of the Channel Leadership Summit EAST Hilton Midtown • New York, NY

JULY 7/11-12

XChange Security Hyatt Regency Reston • Reston, VA

508.416.1175 | thechannelcompany.com

For more information visit www.thechannelco.com/events

© 2022 The Channel Company, LLC. The Channel Company logo is a registered trademark of The Channel Company, LLC. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

COVER STOR Y

ServiceNow:

The Path To $15 Billion ServiceNow President and CEO Bill McDermott says partners are ‘absolutely essential’ as the company puts the pieces in place to become a Software-as-a-Service powerhouse. Here’s how he plans to get there.

By Joseph F. Kovar

W

hen COVID-19 started spreading across the U.S. in early 2020, the National Interagency Fire Center received a FEMA request for 500,000 face masks. Within five days, the request was fulfilled, saving lives and prompting San Diego-based solution provider Cask to convert its business to focus exclusively on ServiceNow. Two years prior, Cask, together with ServiceNow, proposed replacing the NIFC’s existing system, the Resource Ordering and Status System (ROSS), with a modern supply chain platform to manage and dispatch firefighters and related resources across a state or across the country.

The joint Cask and ServiceNow solution, called the Interagency Resource Ordering Capability (IROC), is a platform-agnostic, web-based system that supports ordering, tracking and managing resources in real time in response to wildland fires and other emergencies.

The IROC implementation, based primarily on ServiceNow’s Creator Workflow, cost $16 million and took two years to deploy, said Cask President Mark Larsen. IROC provides a complete supply chain system that ROSS—which cost $350 million and took 20 years to build—could not.

IROC, which went live right after the fire season in 2019, is not only helping agencies fight fires but providing a supply chain that’s saving lives, Larsen said.

“This is the thing that made me say, ‘This is awesome, [Service-

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APRIL 2022

Now] is what I want to focus on,’” Larsen said. “This is not just supporting a business. This is about helping support the mission.

IT tends to focus on optimization and cost take-out. This is about saving lives. I’ve done a lot over the years, but you don’t realize what’s important until it really touches people and changes people’s lives. Then you know what amazing is. And that’s the point where I said this is what I want to do.”

Larsen’s excitement over ServiceNow is shared by channel partners working with the company in myriad industries and markets.

Those partners in turn have helped vault ServiceNow into the upper echelons of the Software-as-a-Service business.

ServiceNow President and CEO Bill McDermott said channel partners are “absolutely essential” to the growth of the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company as it strives to become a $15 billion SaaS powerhouse.

“We have 10 of the world’s largest [solution providers as partners] now. Almost all 10 of them already have at least a billion-dollar ServiceNow aspiration. And some of them have up to a $5 billion aspiration with ServiceNow,” McDermott said in an interview with CRN. “We try to form partnerships that really help CEOs out there solve big problems.”

For many customers, one of the big problems ServiceNow and its channel partners are helping solve is how to get more out of IT investments they have already made.

“Customers feel that they have invested billions in their IT and their applications, but what they’re disillusioned by is only 25

percent of them have gotten positive ROI on those investments,” in setting up a new ServiceNow Business Group, said Dave Kanter, McDermott said. “And as they think about ServiceNow and the senior managing director and lead for the group. ecosystem thinks about ServiceNow, we’re the company that The Dublin, Ireland-based global systems integrator, which in enables all of those previous investments to be automated, where addition to partnering with ServiceNow is one of the company’s the customer can now wring the value out of those platforms largest customers with 674,000 employees worldwide on the that they bargained for and yet they can have one automation platform, uses its experience to push its ServiceNow business to platform that spans the enterprise at a consumer-grade level on higher levels, Kanter told CRN. mobile that gives people incredible services.” “[That experience] allows us to talk with our clients about Getting more value out of the business practices they’ve already how we can help large-scale organizations like Global 2000 built up is an equally enticing proposition for the channel, he said. companies as well as governments around the world transform “The partner network is saying, ‘Hey, I am going to make the work at scale on the ServiceNow platform,” he said. customer happy. I can It’s not just the world’s still keep all the great largest global systems practices I have with integrators that see the all the other companies value in teaming with ‘Those partners are doing much more that I developed in the ServiceNow. The cominnovation because they can move 20th century, but I can pany now counts over with greater speed and agility than the bring a new step func2,000 channel partners tion of productivity, a large and small among big guys. And they tend to lead the way new form factor of conits ranks. in terms of innovation and thought leadership.’ sumer great experiences About 25 percent of with all of my customers new customer logos come — David Parsons, ServiceNow Senior Vice President of Global without harming any of from partners, primarily Alliances and Partner Ecosystem, speaking about the the prior relationships.’ regional systems integracompany’s regional systems integrator and solution provider And that’s what Servicetors and those solution partners Now enables,” he said. providers who are focused “You know, 20 percent on innovation, said David of productivity in every Parsons, ServiceNow’s enterprise goes down the drain with swivel chair losses and people senior vice president of global alliances and partner ecosystem. toggling between application sets on computers, smartphones and “Those partners are doing much more innovation because devices. With ServiceNow, all that goes away. All that turns into they can move with greater speed and agility than the big guys,” instant activity and instant action.”

Parsons told CRN. “And they tend to lead the way in terms of ServiceNow helps businesses take care of the “messy middle” innovation and thought leadership. These are all massive force of moving workloads to a common digital platform, said Asish multipliers on our path to $15 billion.”

Ramchandran, global chief commercial officer for the ServiceNow As an example, Parsons cited Thirdera, a Boulder, Colo.-based business at New York-based Deloitte.

ServiceNow Elite partner that brought the company a deal with “Before ServiceNow, a business might send a query to its ERP German SD-WAN-as-a-Service provider Ngena. system and get a response, but that may require touching ERP, Thirdera, which is focused exclusively on the ServiceNow ecothe sales system and the intelligence systems,” Ramchandran told system, learned through its international contacts that Ngena was CRN. “Now with ServiceNow, you can access the information from challenged in providing Cisco-based SD-WAN-as-a-Service to SMB all systems via a single platform. That has been a game-changer. customers with no up-front charge, said Thirdera CEO Jason Wojahn.

Businesses can now use ServiceNow’s enterprise platform as a “Providing that service to tens of thousands of endpoints is a system of action across multiple technologies.” challenge,” Wojahn said. “It’s logistically complex. So we brought Ramchandran cited a big ServiceNow project Deloitte did for ServiceNow’s Telecommunications Service Management to Ngena, a client early in the COVID-19 pandemic to build an employee and Ngena’s Zero Touch deployment into ServiceNow to streamon-boarding system using a single link to remotely get new hires line the order process and simplify order orchestration and other quickly up and running with equipment, training and connectivity. automation. We also brought in ServiceNow tools for assurance “We implemented it in only two or three months,” he said. “It’s and metrics to bring a lot of transparency to the process from the future of work. It’s not you going to work. It’s the work coming when a customer says, ‘I want an SD-WAN’ until fulfillment.” to you. And really, it’s no longer the future. It’s being done now.”

The complete solution was then brought to ServiceNow, which Meanwhile, Accenture, which has been working with ServiceNow can take it to other customers, Wojahn said. “And we’re the only for over a decade, jointly invested with the vendor 18 months ago one accredited on it,” he said. “No other partner is.”

APRIL 2022

9

COVER STOR Y The Value Of Selling Services ServiceNow was founded in 2004 to automate all of a company’s disparate workflows and processes onto a single platform—the Now platform—and make businesses more responsive to change.

Compare this with the traditional way enterprises manage their processes. Businesses typically have myriad systems, each with its own processes in silos that are individually managed with little or no communications between them. Examples include human resources, incident or change management, sales, AIops, performance management, resource management, software and hardware management, and DevOps. This automation has become a big business for ServiceNow. For the company’s fiscal year 2021, which ended Dec. 31, ServiceNow reported revenue of $5.90 billion, up 30 percent versus 2020. That included subscription revenue of $5.57 billion, up 30 percent over last year, and professional services and other revenue of $323 million, up 39 percent.

Under ServiceNow’s co-sell, co-deliver model of working with channel partners, the company sells most license subscriptions directly to businesses or in conjunction with the sales force of its partners, with a small portion sold by channel partners who source their own deals. ServiceNow said channel partners influence about 90 percent of sales.

On the other hand, ServiceNow relies heavily on channel partners to deliver services. That channel reliance shows in the company’s financials, where in fiscal year 2021 ServiceNow said professional services and other revenue accounted for a mere 5.5 percent of the company’s total revenue. ServiceNow was unable to estimate the total value of its partners’ ServiceNow professional services business.

ServiceNow’s co-sell and co-deliver approach encourages channel partners to work closely with the vendor for customers, said Lara Caimi, ServiceNow’s chief customer and partner officer.

That approach is outlined by the company’s ServiceNow Assure co-delivery methodology, under which about 10 percent of the total services revenue from a particular customer goes to ServiceNow to insert its resources at critical points and help guide the project, provide best practices, and offer insight and coaching, Caimi told CRN. “So we have a little bit of skin in the game which, by the way, customers have been asking for, which raises the bar for partners,” she said.

Another aspect of ServiceNow’s co-sell/co-deliver approach is that the company needs its channel partners to be chock-full of technical talent.

“We have to be attracting and keeping the best talent,” McDermott said, noting that ServiceNow hired more than 10,000 people during the COVID-19 pandemic. “But also we need our partners to be an extension of our talent pool because they do 90 percent of the implementations out there, and they have to drive customer satisfaction and innovation and scale. So we’re going to have to do lots of training, lots of skill development, lots of recruiting,

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APRIL 2022

and lots of work with our customers to make sure that they are 100 percent satisfied and referenceable and scalable at all times.”

The combination of growth opportunity and a technical talent shortage has led to solution providers that have built thriving ServiceNow practices being acquired at a blistering pace.

For example, San Diego-based solution provider NewRocket has made four acquisitions in the ServiceNow space since it was formed last year specifically to build a ServiceNow-focused business, the most recent being India-based Service Stack Technologies.

NewRocket CEO Matt Stoyka told CRN that channel M&A in the ServiceNow space is real. “We all just believe in the vision of what ServiceNow presents to clients, and we can all get behind it,” he said.

Stoyka also said the M&A will continue to come in waves as the ecosystem matures. “This is still a high-growth ecosystem,” he said. “It takes time for partners to pop up and grow. So there’s a limited number of partners where acquisitions would make sense.”

Helping Partners Uncover Opportunities Erica Volini, senior vice president of ServiceNow’s partner goto-market operations and former head of Deloitte’s ServiceNow business, said ServiceNow wants to make its resale program easier for partners big and small to work with customers from the starting conversation to the implementation to ensure customer satisfaction.

To that end, ServiceNow is looking at implementing an end-toend deal registration program to help them see the opportunities, Volini said. “We need to reduce the friction and help partners be in a position to help us from day one,” she said.

ServiceNow is also now designing programs to improve partner incentives and is examining the issue of compensation-neutral channel programs, Volini said.

“This is still in motion,” she said. “But we’re looking at how to educate and arm our field to engage with partners. That is my North Star.”

While some partners told CRN they are interested in taking a bigger piece of the ServiceNow license resale pie, the majority of those contacted said ServiceNow’s direct sales focus is not an issue.

CDW, for instance, both sells ServiceNow licenses and works on deals brought by the vendor’s sales reps, said Tim Ancona, vice president of the Vernon Hills, Ill.-based solution provider.

“It’s a model that works as we build out the ServiceNow brand,” Ancona said.

ServiceNow touches every part of CDW’s business, Ancona said. “When we deploy it, it’s not just ServiceNow, but it ties in to every part of what CDW deploys to customers,” he said.

Accenture works closely with the ServiceNow direct sales reps in Global 2000 customers where the two organizations have what Kanter termed a “wonderful” overlap that really does not create any channel conflict. He also said it is up to the client which organization sells the licenses.

“We have regular governance meetings between our CEO Julie

Sweet and Bill McDermott and our teams,” he said. “We set joint interface for improved productivity. The next release, expected objectives each year around where we want to grow. ServiceNow later this year, will be named Tokyo. has targets each year around their net-new ACV [actual cash “Remember one thing about ServiceNow: It’s like a Tesla. value] and their ACV growth. We set targets for services growth, Because as we constantly bring cloud-based innovation, customers and track and measure those on a regular basis throughout the can consume the innovation without any disruption,” McDermott year. So there’s no conflict.” said. “Our invisible upgrades do not require our customers to go License sales is not a significant issue for NewRocket despite through an upgrade cycle or shut down their operations. ... It’s ServiceNow being the primary driver of its business, said Stoyka. an instant-on implementation upgrade, completely invisible.We’re “We’ve built our business with a focus on services,” he said. the only one in the enterprise that can do it.”

“The good news about the ecosystem is that, with ServiceNow’s ServiceNow’s San Diego release also featured new innovation growth, there’s a large ocean to work in. So we will compete focused on technology providers for specific industries, said Dave with the global systems integrators and also partner with them. Wright, ServiceNow’s chief innovation officer.

Or if there are multiple “With San Diego, we workflows being implewant to focus on producmented in a client, we tivity, automation and ‘One of the beauties of ServiceNow is may be working in taninnovation,” Wright said. dem with other partners.

ServiceNow’s techits configurable platform that allows It’s important to work nology, and its value to partners to come in and build their with clients’ needs.” customers, has changed Services is key to winover the years based in own value. Smaller partners can ning with ServiceNow, large part on how cuscome in, find a niche and build on our platform.’ said Stephen Ayoub, tomers and partners have president and co-founder used it, he said.

— Erica Volini, ServiceNow Senior Vice President of Partner of Chicago-based solu“When we saw people Go-To-Market Operations tion provider Ahead. start to understand ser“We made a significant vice management, we investment in a best-of-breed ServiceNow consulting and imple- built new workflow products on our platform,” Wright said. “Most mentation practice, understanding that our investment will pay recently, these include industry-focused workflow products for off in services which we perform,” Ayoub told CRN. finance, for example. And as we go into industry workflows, we ServiceNow’s co-sell, co-delivery approach works for channel see partners working in those verticals, which was an opportunity partners, Caimi said. For instance, she said, ServiceNow is desig- for us and partners to expand the product.” nated as a top-five strategic partner at about six of the top 10 global Another aspect of ServiceNow’s innovation means that partner systems integrators, putting it at the same level as much larger SaaS opportunities don’t end at deployment, Volini said. companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and Salesforce.

“One of the beauties of ServiceNow is its configurable platform “We’re like the little underdog in that list, but it’s really incred- that allows partners to come in and build their own value,” she ible that that’s where partners are placing us in the level of said. “Smaller partners can come in, find a niche and build on our strategic investment that we’re getting,” she said. platform. We cover every part of the enterprise and need partners to do so either by going deep or going broad.”

Home-Grown Innovation ServiceNow and its partners are in the right place to take advanWhile M&A activity in the ServiceNow channel is growing, Ser- tage of a global once-in-an-era re-platforming of global business viceNow itself has funneled its resources into R&D rather than onto the cloud on a compressed timeline, said Accenture’s Kanter. growth through acquisitions, aside from a few where the real C-level executives are seeing multiple levels of change happening target was talent, not revenue, McDermott said. at the same time, which are causing them to rethink their business “Organic growth is working here because we’re putting so much models and the cloud, he said. into R&D and the expertise of our proud engineering heritage,” “Accenture research shows that seven out of 10 of our clients are McDermott said. “I can’t find a company that I could buy that making major investments in customer service and operations,” he wouldn’t be dilutive to either my revenue or my margin story, so said. “For the last two years, to get help on an issue, you couldn’t why would I buy any of them? That’s the real issue.” go physically to a place. You needed to start digital by default. And The company rolls out two major releases each year, each then we have this massive workforce reset going on. [This requires] named for a city. The first of 2022, dubbed San Diego, came out in our clients to seek ways to handle all of these fronts at the same March and focused heavily on robotic process automation (RPA) time. And we see ServiceNow as core to the business architecture capabilities and featured a significantly enhanced graphical user and the technology architecture to solve that equation.”

APRIL 2022

11

COVER STOR Y

ServiceNow’s McDermott: ‘We’re In A Market Of One’ Bill McDermott, president and CEO of ServiceNow, said the company is on its way to becoming a $15 billion SaaS powerhouse by building a “platform of platforms.”

“Businesses are tired of the same old story of doing one thing well in one department with an island of automation,” he told CRN in an interview. “They want to put it all together in a strategic platform.”

McDermott spoke on a range of issues, including ServiceNow’s competition, his acquisition strategy, and the importance of partners to his vision of growing the company today and in the future.

What is ServiceNow? How do you define it?

ServiceNow is the workflow automation market leader.

Essentially, it’s a platform company, and we enable businesses to truly work differently and work better. There are numerous examples that I can give you of that, but workflow automation market leader would be the platform story behind ServiceNow.

Who are your primary competitors?

ServiceNow is in a market segment of one. We are the company that realized you had to make work better for people.

Because if you look at the systems of record and the various changes that came about in the enterprise in the prior century, everything was very siloed. There were different systems for HR, for CRM, for financials, for data and analytics. And what happened is we have all of these islands of automation in the enterprise, and many of them were in the customer’s own data center or in early stage cloud companies.

[ServiceNow in 2004] created a platform that enabled companies to manage their IT and really think of IT as the business strategy for a company. How do I service the business? How do I manage my assets? How do I manage operations? How do I keep my operations secure? That really became like a control tower. And on the employee side, it became how do I make sure my employees have a consumer-grade great experience by accessing all the services they need to do their job.We were the company that automated that process. ...

The reason we’re in a market of one is we invented a platform that enables IT, the employee experience, the customer experience and the creator experience to happen on one platform with one architectural design that’s pure-play in the cloud, that operates at a consumer grade, and it scales with the biggest companies in all industries and geographies in the world. That is a segment of one corporation.

Analysts put ServiceNow in the same reports as BMC, Microsoft, IBM, Atlassian or SAP, yet you call this a ‘segment of one.’

I say we’re the ‘platform of platforms’ because all those other platforms do one thing very well. One of them does financials very well. Another might do IT service OK.

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Another one might do something in developer operations OK. I’m saying there’s only one company that has a hyperautomation platform that does all of those things on one platform with a consumer-grade experience and a pure-play design for the cloud. So yes, you’ll have independent research that’ll say the companies you mentioned will compete with ServiceNow on one dimension, but what customers are more and more realizing and what partners are obviously betting on because there’s many of them now that have billion-dollar plans with ServiceNow, is that businesses are tired of the same old story of doing one thing well in one department with an island of automation. They want to put it all together in a strategic platform.

What’s stopping someone else from building a similar platform to bring all the different islands of automation together?

Anybody can do anything they want, and that’s the beautiful part of being in a free market economy where innovation is possible. And I believe competition is a great thing because it just inspires us to do even better. But you know, these things don’t happen overnight. So anybody who wanted to do that would have to literally start with a clean sheet design like we did and innovative platforms that could scale across all of those domains, which is really hard to do. If it wasn’t really hard to do, ServiceNow wouldn’t have become the global sensation that it is. ...

Does ServiceNow have an acquisition strategy?

Organic growth is working here because we’re putting so much into R&D and the expertise of our proud engineering heritage.

I can’t find a company that I could buy that wouldn’t be dilutive to either my revenue or my margin story. So why would I buy any of them? That’s the real issue. [We] look for great talent in the market and a category that we care a lot about.We did buy some AI companies for the talent, not for the revenue.

For instance, we felt that having a Turing Award winner, which is the Nobel Peace Prize for AI, was an important reason to acquire Element AI. And we did that. These are small tuck-ins, they’re complementary to our skills and our culture, and that’s where we’ll play.

What is the vision for ServiceNow going forward? What kinds of things are you looking at for 2022 and beyond?

First of all, the market for a cloud-type of automation platform like ServiceNow is at least $1 trillion, according to IDC and Gartner. If you want to just narrow it down to what we’re focused on right now, and just look at the properties that we have on our platform, depending on which research analyst writes the report, it’s about $175 [billion] to $200 billion in market opportunity. So we’re just getting started in terms of capitalizing on our addressable market with our sustained engineering force. …

And [we are] making sure that we build the most incredible culture on the planet. We were able to hire more than 10,000 people during COVID. We’ll more than double our workforce in the next couple of years. And we have the highest retention rates of employees and customers in the information technology industry, high Net Promoter Score, loyal customers, loyal employees, all part of our hungry and humble culture of winning as a team and really wowing our customers and building something at the highest standards.

How important are channel partners to that vision and to the growth of ServiceNow? Absolutely essential. We have 10 of the world’s largest ones now.Almost all 10 of them already have at least a billion-dollar ServiceNow aspiration. And some of them have up to a $5 billion aspiration with ServiceNow. We try to form partnerships that really help CEOs out there solve big problems. The CEO community is focused on digital transformation as a long-term solution. They need to solve structural challenges, whether it’s political conflict, supply chain disruption, inflation, all the things around siloed applications and siloed environments. All of this is an elixir for the partner network to help us in industries and geographies and personas. So great partners like Deloitte are teaming up with us to improve business processes from IT to the employee and customer experience.And they’re really driving tremendous ROI. On average, 5X ROI improvement for the customers we jointly serve. Look at Accenture. They work with us to deliver world-class experiences to, for example, veterans [by focusing] our AI capabilities to automate what used to be difficult manual processes to give veterans a great experience.

And veterans now take very complex paths from loan originations to how they get their services and medical care all on the ServiceNow platform with customer satisfaction rates near 100 percent. And so all of these partners are mission-critical.

So all of this is really coming together in a beautiful mosaic.

I met with a fantastic CEO of one of the largest telco companies in the world where we’re teaming up on 5G and digital trust. It’s one of the big issues that touches security, network services, the services you get on your mobile. And we built

out a whole cybersecurity plan with this company to take solutions and be very nimble against attackers and other things because all these siloed tools in the enterprise are presenting tremendous entry point opportunities for attackers.

So we put a 360-degree view of customer security in front of us and built a posture for that in real time.

Do you see any change in partner dynamics going forward?

What’s happening out there is customers feel that they have invested billions in their IT and their applications. But what they’re disillusioned by is only 25 percent of them have gotten positive ROI on those investments. And as they think about ServiceNow and the ecosystem thinks about ServiceNow, we’re the company that enables all of those previous investments to be automated, where the customer can now wring the value out of those platforms that they bargained for, and yet they can have one automation platform that spans the enterprise at a consumer-grade level on mobile that gives people incredible services.

So the partner network is saying, ‘Hey, I am going to make the customer happy. I can still keep all the great practices I have with all the other companies that I developed in the 20th century, but I can bring a new step function of productivity, a new form factor of consumer great experiences with all of my customers without harming any of the prior relationships.’ And that’s what ServiceNow enables. You know, 20 percent of productivity in every enterprise goes down the drain with swivel chair losses and people toggling between application sets on computers, smartphones and devices. With ServiceNow, all that goes away.

All that turns into instant activity and instant action.

What are some things that you would like to see your channel partners do to be more in tune with the vision you have for them?

I really want them to recognize it’s all about people. Talent is really the difference between thriving and surviving in the 21st century. And we have to close the global skills gap because the closure of that gap is an $11.5 trillion market opportunity by 2028, according to the World Economic Forum. So we have to be attracting and keeping the best talent. But also we need our partners to be an extension of our talent pool because they do 90 percent of the implementations out there, and they have to drive customer satisfaction and innovation and scale. So we’re going to have to do lots of training, lots of skill development, lots of recruiting, and lots of work with our customers to make sure that they are 100 percent satisfied and referenceable and scalable at all times. So really, the No. 1 thing is focus on people, develop that talent, and make sure it’s extraordinarily well prepared for the challenges that our customers are going to face in this century and beyond. ■

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PURDUE UNIVERSITY BREAKS RESEARCH COMPUTING BARRIERS ON-PREM AND IN THE CLOUD Forging the future of computing with Anvil using Dell EMC PowerEdge servers and Microsoft Azure powered by AMD EPYC™ CPUs

CUSTOMER

INDUSTRY Education CHALLENGES Deliver the most possible compute resources to the national US research community SOLUTION Dell EMC PowerEdge C6525 servers and Microsoft Azure powered by 3rd Gen AMD EPYC™ processors RESULTS 1 billion CPU core hours per year for national research projects, giving a significant boost to XSEDE’s computing capacity AMD TECHNOLOGY AT A GLANCE 2nd Gen AMD EPYC™ 7662 processors with 64 cores 3rd Gen AMD EPYC™ 7763 processors with 64 cores TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS

Science is increasingly driven by computation. Research domains are proliferating. With an increasing number of scientists wanting to harness the potential of computer-aided discovery, greater levels of processing power need to be shared more widely. Purdue University wanted to create a system with forward-looking mixed (cloud) computing and composable capabilities that could deliver the maximum amount of research computing capacity to the US academic community. With the help of Dell EMC PowerEdge servers powered

by AMD EPYC™ processors, Purdue won a $10 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to provide the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) with the Anvil supercomputer.

THE EVER-INCREASING DEMAND FOR RESEARCH COMPUTING “There was a call for grant proposals from the NSF in 2019 for its Advanced Computing Systems and Services (ACSS) program,” says Carol Song, Senior Research Scientist and Scientific Solutions Director at Purdue University, and the principal investigator of Anvil. “This is different from the traditional NSF research programs. It’s about putting together and operating large systems to provide services to research users.”

Over the last few years, research computing has expanded into domains beyond those traditionally associated with computation. “Historically, at Purdue, it would have been engineering and the college of science using these resources,” says James Johnson, Operations Manager, Research Computing at Purdue University.

“Fast forward to today, and every single school or college on campus is utilizing high performance computational power in some way.”

“We had a good feel for what the general trend in research is, so we put in a proposal for Anvil to address three main challenges,” continues Song. “One is the demand for computing cycles increasing every year. The NSF-funded XSEDE program systems are all oversubscribed all the time. The second, is the diversification of applications with more domains joining the HPC world, further increasing demand for computation and data-driven analytics.

The third challenge is training the emerging workforce, both from the perspective of using HPC resources and running them.”

However, the Purdue University Anvil system wasn’t just going to be for internal use. The NSF grant requires that systems be shared externally as well. “Any proposals funded by the ACSS program are for the national community,” says Song. “The system is allocated through XSEDE, the coordination body of a set of resources.

These resources are in various institutions, with Purdue being one of the providers.”

“The amount of computing that we were able to get for Bell on the [2nd Generation AMD EPYC™ processor] Rome-based system was just staggering compared to our previous systems. We got 45 percent more FLOPS per dollar.”

Preston Smith, Executive Director, Research Computing at Purdue University

A system aimed at providing compute power to the national academic community must deliver the maximum possible resources for the funding available.

Purdue’s previous experience with AMD EPYC processors on its “Bell” cluster made this a clear platform contender.

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Researchers had already found Bell extremely easy to run their workloads on, with excellent performance. “The high memory bandwidth let the life scientists’ bioinformatics applications solve bigger problems than they were able to do on previous systems,” says Preston Smith, Executive Director, Research Computing at Purdue University. “The amount of computing that we were able to get for Bell on the [2nd Generation AMD EPYC™ processor] ‘Rome’-based system was just staggering compared to our previous systems. We got 45 percent more FLOPS per dollar.”

FASTER PERFORMANCE, UNPARALLELED COMPUTE DENSITY IN THE CLOUD AND ON-PREM Purdue performed benchmarks to see how much better the PowerEdge servers with 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors would be than the servers with 2nd Gen AMD EPYC CPUs in the Bell cluster. Using 3rd Gen AMD EPYC virtual machines on Microsoft Azure, the test applications spanned typical research workloads, including GROMACS, LAMMPS, NAMD, OpenFOAM®, WRF®, DB12 and HPCG. “Going from ‘Rome’ to ‘Milan’ [2nd to 3rd Gen AMD EPYC CPUs], we were seeing from 9 to 39 percent faster performance [with Azure VMs],” says Smith. The Purdue tests were aided by the fact that Microsoft Azure was already offering 3rd Gen AMD EPYC HPC VMs (HBv3), which could be used for testing. “Migrating those software applications up into Azure was straightforward. We had great support from Microsoft.”

“Whether we’re building a system for campus or proposing something for the NSF, the value delivered by Dell Technologies, Microsoft, and AMD make it a no brainer and provide a compelling platform for the Anvil proposal.”

Carol Song, Senior Research Scientist and Scientific Solutions Director at Purdue University, Principal Investigator of AnvilUniversity

These results implied that Dell EMC PowerEdge servers with 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors would deliver Purdue the best performance for the money for the on-site portion of the deployment. “Whether it’s federal money from the NSF or Purdue money, which is coming from the State of Indiana, it has to be proven that a proposal is the best possible one for the public good,” says Smith. “One of the things that really made the PowerEdge C6525 platform with AMD EPYC processors so compelling is that it enables four 128-core nodes in 2U of rack space, which is extremely dense. We are still using the same facility that’s been hosting high-performance computing at Purdue since the 1970s. Being able to fit modern density computing in that space is paramount. Having lots of these 4 by 128 core 2U units gives us a great deal of compute capacity and performance in a comparable amount of space and wattage.”

UNPARALLELED SCIENCE PERFORMANCE AS A SERVICE The Purdue proposal received $10 million in acquisition funding, alongside a $12.5 million grant for five years of operation and user support. “Anvil is a large CPU cluster with a thousand nodes of 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors,” says Song. “We have a sub portion with GPUs, and large 1TB memory nodes. Altogether, we are offering XSEDE one billion CPU core hours per year, giving XSEDE a boost with a lot of computing cycles.

Our philosophy in the proposal was that we want to support lots of users and lots of moderate-sized jobs. Instead of just hero runs using huge resources, we are also focusing on the bulk of the computation that’s happening on national systems today and in the future.”

“We designed Anvil to fit a broad cross-section of research work,” says Smith. “When we proposed the system, we found that a significant percent of both the jobs run and hours delivered on XSEDE, can fit on one Anvil node. With that goal in mind, having a thousand 128-core nodes allows us to fit lots of representative work from XSEDE onto Anvil.” Song adds: “We see Anvil as a system forging the future of computing. We expect tens of thousands of researchers around the nation to be able to access it. We call it science as a service.” With an eye on future workflows, Anvil’s Dell PowerEdge compute nodes will be supplemented with burst capacity in Microsoft Azure, as well as leverage Azure’s machine learning tools. Microsoft Azure will serve as a path for future scalability and reproducibility for applications developed within Anvil’s Kubernetes®-based composable subsystem built within the cluster on Dell PowerEdge.”

“High performance computing is going to be so critical to science, industry and lots of other sectors in the future,” concludes Song.

“We’ve got great plans for how we’re going to use Anvil as a tool for training the next generation of the HPC workforce. Whether we’re building a system for campus or proposing something for the NSF, the value delivered by Dell Technologies, Microsoft, and AMD make it a no brainer and provide a compelling platform for the Anvil proposal.”

WANT TO LEARN HOW AMD EPYC™ PROCESSORS MIGHT WORK FOR YOU? Sign up to receive our data center content.

AMD.COM/EPYCSIGNUP

All performance and cost savings claims are provided by Purdue University and have not been independently verified by AMD. Performance and cost benefits are impacted by a variety of variables. Results herein are specific to Purdue University and may not be typical. GD-181 ©2021 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, EPYC, and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Kubernetes is a registered trademark of the Linux Foundation in the United States and/or other countries. OpenFOAM is a registered trademark of OpenCFD Limited. WRF is a registered trademark of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). Other product names used in this publication are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective companies.

C R N PA R T N E R P R O G R A M G U I D E 2 0 2 2

Partner Programs Are The Glue While vendors rely on partners to expand their market reach, solution providers rely on vendors for the products and related services their customers need.

Here are the programs that tie these two together.

By Rick Whiting

S

ome of the IT industry’s biggest vendors have launched significant revamps of their partner programs in recent months, including cloud platform giant Amazon Web Services, chipmaker AMD, computer systems manufacturers Dell Technologies and Lenovo, and software and cloud behemoth Microsoft.

While those and other recent launches of new and updated IT vendor partner programs differ in the details, there are several common themes: simplifying partner engagement, supporting evolving partner types, providing partners with training and certification in new technologies, helping channel partners adapt to new customer buying practices like as-a-service, and creating new ways for partners to increase recurring revenue.

Dell, for example, recently launched a new partner program for its fiscal 2023 that brings together solution providers, cloud service providers and OEMs; offers new incentives aimed at driving partner profitability in midrange storage, client systems and VMware offerings; seeks to drive as-a-service sales, streamlines the Partner Experience Center and Online Systems Configurator, and invests more in the channel than in fiscal 2022.

“We have a robust reseller ecosystem operating in a traditional Capex model who have impeccable momentum right now. We have emerging and evolving partners co-engineering around OEM, edge and telecom. These partners have positioned us for the future,” Dell Technologies global channel chief Rola Dagher told CRN in February. “We have partners who have been providing managed services with Dell infrastructure long before as-a-service was cool. And those are the partners we’re seeing providing so much more value than just shift-and-lift.”

AWS unveiled a major overhaul of its partner program in November, including introducing five partner paths to streamline the program, simplify engagement and expand partner access to benefits. For its part, AMD introduced a new partner program with aggressive rebates for commercial systems sellers. And last year Cisco Systems launched the biggest changes to its partner program structure in more than a decade with an increased focus on life cycle, managed services and Everything-as-a-Service opportunities.

Some IT companies have spent the last year implementing partner program changes and reaping the benefits of those changes.

Juniper Networks saw partner-initiated business grow 110 percent in the year since November 2020 when the company unveiled a

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plan at its Partner Summit to invest heavily in the channel.

“We went on a journey with the partners,” channel chief Gordon Mackintosh told CRN in November of Juniper’s channel efforts in 2021. “We invested in them and got staggering results.

Really, what the partners have been asking for is more investment, joint investments and alignment with Juniper to work more closely with us than ever before.”

It’s not just the major vendors that have recently undertaken partner program initiatives. Multi-cloud networking startup Prosimo launched its inaugural partner program in January while cloud security company Netskope did likewise in March.

IT infrastructure automation company Puppet debuted a new competency-focused partner program in January with the goal of empowering its 200 global partners to be more competitive.

IT vendors rely on partners to expand their market reach while solution providers rely on vendors for the IT products and related services their customers are asking for. Partner programs are the glue that hold those relationships together.

The CRN Partner Program Guide is based on detailed applications submitted by IT companies—more than 300 this year—outlining all aspects of their channel programs. To assemble the annual Partner Program Guide, The Channel Company’s research team analyzes the applications and designates some of the programs as 5-Star.

The 5-Star criteria include partner incentives, margins and discounts, partner profitability, sales and marketing assistance, and subscription-based and consumption-based pricing availability.

The criteria also include the availability of sales leads, deal registration, pre- and post-sales support, programs to help partners grow their services attach, training and education offerings, specialization and technical certifications.

Vendors are listed alphabetically on the following pages, along with some insight about each one’s partner program and, where provided, their goals for 2022. The 5-Star designation recognizes an elite subset of partner programs with overall exemplary ratings, providing the incentives, resources and assistance that channel partners need to be successful in today’s competitive marketplace.

More details about each company’s partner program are available at www.crn.com. Scan the QR code to view the full database. ■

Company

Partner Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

[24]7.ai

[24]7.ai Partner Program

Barry Schween, VP, Channels

The company is seeking gowth in recruited partners, partnergenerated leads (referral or resell) and expansion outside North America.

8x8

8x8 Open Channel Program

Lisa Del Real, Global Channel Chief

8x8 is expanding program benefits and resources to help partners grow and retain revenue. In addition, the company will continue to innovate its XCaaS platform, expand its enterprise base and increase global scale following the acquisition of Fuze.

Absolute Software

Absolute Partner Program

Mark Grace, EVP, Global Channel, Revenue Operations

As the integration with NetMotion is complete, 2022 will focus on on-boarding NetMotion partners and enabling them for cross-sell. The company is enhancing deal registration and technical certification training to allow partners to sell services.

Accedian

Skylight 4X Partner Program

Sergio Bea, VP, Global Enterprise, Channels

Accedian plans to implement $50,000 per month, per partner of unaided sales combined with a self-sufficiency enablement model. It will continue developing and scaling MSP/MSSP partnerships to drive new revenue growth opportunities.

Acer America

Acer Alliance VAR

Philip Burger, VP, U.S. Commercial Channel

Acer’s goals this year are to revamp its existing channel program, improve partner profitability and encourage partners to sell a broader part of the portfolio.

Acumatica

Acumatica Partner Program

Sanket Akerkar, CRO

In 2022, Acumatica plans to continue expansion of its network of qualified international partners. Further, it will migrate partners to cloud solutions and increase the amount of netnew accounts coming through partners.

Adlumin

Adlumin Advantage Partner Program

Jim Adams, SVP, Worldwide Sales, Channels

Adlumin’s goals are to drive significantly more profitability and differentiated value to partner reps, business owners and companies. For the Adlumin Advantage Partner program, it's all about ease of doing business and partner and deal profitability.

Aerospike

Aerospike Accelerate Partner Program

Jeff Ballard, Global Director, Partners, Alliances

The Accelerate program's focus is to drive deeper relationships with a targeted set of partners to speed their revenue development and evolve resources to enable partners to more effectively uncover, work and win data platform opportunities.

Alert Logic

Partner Connect Program

Dan Webb, VP, Global Partner Sales, Alliances

Alert Logic expects to have 35 percent year-over-year growth in bookings across its MSP, reseller and referral partners. It also plans to add eight to10 new MSP partners to its MSP program.

Altaworx

Altaworx Channel Program

Jaime Rawden, VP, Channel Development

Altaworx is emphasizing the ease of working with the company, along with offering extensive training and recurring commissions, for its agent partners who provide hosted voice, data, mobility, wireless and IoT solutions to their customers.

Amazon Web Services

AWS Partner Network Program

Ruba Borno, VP, Worldwide Channels, Alliances

AWS plans to migrate partners to cloud solutions, increase the amount of net-new accounts coming through partners, ramp up partner sales of newly launched products and services, and improve partner technical skills and profitability.

AMD

AMD Partner Program

Terry Richardson, North American Channel Chief

The AMD Partner Program goals for 2022 are to expand channel coverage, increase investments across all segments, simplify its engagement model and generate new, profitable and repeatable revenue streams.

Anomali

Anomali Resilience Partner Program

Chris Peterson, VP, Global Partnerships

With its new partner program, Anomali has adopted a channel-first approach to providing extended detection and response cybersecurity solutions through global systems integrators, VARs, distributors and service providers.

AppDynamics, part of Cisco

AppDynamics Global Partner Program

Mark Maslach, VP, Global Channels, Strategic Alliances

AppDynamics’ priorities are to increase partner profitability and rewards based on their work with AppDynamics and provide closer alignment to Cisco’s sales motion to give them the opportunity to build out full-stack observability practices.

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Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

Appgate

Appgate Partner Network

Tina Gravel, SVP, Global Channels, Alliances

Appgate aims to increase the overall percentage of company revenue that comes through the channel and launch new incentives related to the updated Sentinel Program for training and development.

AppOmni

AppOmni Infinity Partner Program

Todd Wilson, Sr. Director, Global Alliances

AppOmni’s goals for its Infinity Partner Program are to continue to help partners differentiate their practices through innovation, including services. The company will provide the training, sales support and MDF.

Aqua Security

Aqua Link Partner Program

Jeanette Lee Heung, Sr. Director, Global Alliances, Channel

Aqua Security’s strategic goal is to create a partner-led cloud security assessment that will generate leads and deal registrations. The company will offer SaaS instances so partners can conduct assessments utilizing its scanning capability.

Arcserve

Arcserve Partner Success Program

Andy Zollo, EVP, Worldwide Sales

Arcserve plans to focus its efforts on enhancing its partner program and helping partners to sell more of the company’s product portfolio.

Arctic Wolf

Arctic Wolf Partner Program

Bob Skelley, SVP, Global Channels

In 2022, Arctic Wolf is doubling down on investments and benefits for its most committed partners. It plans to offer enhanced rewards and incentives, expanded technical training and hyper-personalized engagement opportunities.

Area 1 Security

Area 1 Security Accelerate Partner Program

Steve Pataky, CRO

Area 1 Security is continuing to recruit new channel partners who seek to participate in the explosive growth of the cloud email security market. It strives to support partners efficiently so they can immediately see value with Area 1 offerings.

Arista Networks

Arista Channels NOW! Partner Program

Mark Foss, SVP, Global Field Operations, Marketing

Arista sees substantial resell opportunities for resellers and systems integrator partners and encourages partners to establish high-value services practices, for which it provides certified service delivery training.

Arrow Electronics

Arrow’s Digital Growth Experience

Ben Klay, VP, Sales, North America

Arrow’s program provides enablement, growth and analytics capabilities to drive real business outcomes for IT solution and service providers. Partners can access customizable services, including qualified customer leads, financing and leasing.

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company

HPE Partner Ready for Aruba

Donna Grothjan, VP, Worldwide Channels

Aruba plans to increase rewards for partners who demonstrate specific capabilities. It also aims to drive business growth with Aruba SD-WAN solutions leveraging Silver Peak value and evolve the partner ecosystem with a focus on services partners.

Aryaka Networks

Aryaka Accelerate Program

Craig Patterson, Channel Chief, VP, Sales, Americas

Aryaka wants to double its partner base in 2022. With its new managed SD-WAN and SASE offerings, the addressable market will expand and this, coupled with the Accelerate program, should be very attractive to partners.

AttackIQ

Accelerate Partner Program

AttackIQ is launching its new Global Channel Partner Program Jackie Kruger, Director, in 2022. The program will add a robust managed services Worldwide Partner Ecosystems program and new partner advisory board, in addition to sales education, certification, resources and programs.

Attivo Networks

Attivo Networks Partner Program

Tushar Kothari, CEO

Attivo’s goal is to shift from an Attivo-led to a partner-led sourcing model. Given the siege of identity-based attacks, solution providers have a prime opportunity to upsell their customer base.

Automation Anywhere

Advantage Partner Program

Ben Yerushalmi, SVP, Global Alliances, Channels

Automation Anywhere differentiates partners who have deep technical expertise in automation technologies and have the competencies and capabilities to implement the company’s cloud-native, AI-powered Automation 360 platform.

APRIL 2022

Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

Automox

Automox Automic Partner Program

Chris Garcia, Director, Channel Sales

Automox will focus on moving to a 100 percent channel model, adding strategic partners, increasing MDF dollars and distribution, and delivering more collaborative partner marketing events and campaigns.

Avanan, a Check Point Company

Avanan Channel Program

Mike Lyons, VP, Global Channels

In 2022, Avanan wants to be 100 percent channel for all transactions. It aims to add additional head count, on-board 10 national and strategic partners, and grow a footprint in other international regions.

Avaya

Avaya Edge

Dennis Kozak, SVP, Global Channel Sales

The 2022 Avaya Edge partner program supports three key components: migrations to subscription and cloud, paying more for new customers and simplifying program terms.

AvePoint

AvePoint Partner Program

Jason Beal, SVP, Global Channel, Partner Ecosystems

AvePoint has prioritized its MDF program, which continues to evolve based on frequently solicited partner feedback. It also will prioritize a certification program to empower partners to master specific skills.

Avertium

Avertium Partner Program

Randy Rosenbaum, VP, Strategic Alliances

Avertium has a major focus on growing its managed services practice through partners with a goal of over 90 percent of managed services bookings coming through the channel.

Axcient

Axcient Partner Program

Charlie Tomeo, CRO

Axcient seeks to involve more partners and give them more opportunities to grow their business. It also will increase the amount of MDF available and expand the number of automated campaigns in the Axcient Marketing Portal.

Axonius

Axonius Correlated Partner Program

Mark Daggett, VP, Worldwide Channel, Alliances

Axonius will expand teams in each region globally to build out a robust strategic alliance program. It is also implementing a new PRM system, which will make it easier to allocate MDF and will provide a lead-sharing mechanism.

Barracuda

Barracuda MSP Partner Program

Neal Bradbury, SVP, GM, Barracuda MSP

Barracuda aims to increase the amount of recurring revenue going through partners and ramp up partner sales of its new products and services.

Barracuda Networks

Barracuda Partner Program

Bill Fitzgerald, VP, Channels, Americas

Barracuda Networks is looking to accelerate its doubledigit growth across all levels of partnership through increased investments in new incentive programs, while adding significant head count to support these efforts.

Binary Defense

Binary Defense Shield Tim Martin, National Channel Sales Manager Program

Bitdefender

Bitdefender Partner Advantage Network

Emilio Roman, SVP, Global Sales, Channels

Binary Defense is focused on building its on-boarding program to include more training and marketing materials.

It plans to offer partners personalized engagement, expanded training modules and upgraded incentives.

Bitdefender’s goal is to offer an improved enablement experience based on the partner life cycle, starting from the portal registration to placing orders up to advancing to a higher tier.

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2 0 2 2 PA R T N E R P R O G R A M G U I D E Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

BitTitan, an Idera Company

BitTitan Partner Program

Kevin Serpanchy, VP, Global Sales

BitTitan will add an online training and certification program. Certification will begin through distribution and then will expand to all partners in the program later in 2022.

BlackBerry

BlackBerry Partner Program

Colleen McMillan, VP, Global Channel Sales

BlackBerry is committed to mutual success with partners. It is focused on providing enhanced opportunities for partners to grow their profitability through expanded training, offerings, competencies and incentives.

Blokworx

Blokworx Partner Program

Robert Boles, President

Blokworx aims to expand the footprint of its Lunch and Learn program nationwide by year-end. It also plans to increase the technical and sales certifications available for the Advanced Partner Program to increase its value.

Blue Prism

Blue Prism Partner Engage Program

Linda Dotts, Chief Partner Strategy Officer

Blue Prism aims to expand partner growth into higher revenue and certification tiers, increase flexibility in how partners can achieve sales incentives, and leverage cloud application marketplaces for increased lead referrals.

BlueVoyant

BlueVoyant Partner Program

John Keenan, Head of Global Channel Sales

BlueVoyant will be enhancing its partner program, including a new partner portal with built-in partner journeys for different partner types and roles, new online sales and technical sales certifications, and new ways for partners to engage.

BMC

BMC Partner Advantage Progam

Pam Johansen, AVP, Pillar, Channel Operations

In 2022 BMC will continue to focus on SaaS transformation within its existing partner community and strategically expand the BMC ecosystem, as the channel will be the accelerator to BMC’s sales growth.

Boomi

Boomi Global Partner Program

David Tavolaro, VP, Global Business Development

Boomi expanded and enhanced its Partner Resource Center, which includes insightful content as well as opportunities for partners to further promote their brand and value proposition through the Partner Finder.

Broadcom Software

Broadcom Software Advantage Partner Program

Cynthia Loyd, VP, Global Enterprise, Partner, Commercial Sales

Broadcom is pivoting from a stabilization of the base and renewals-focused strategy to one focused on growth, adoption and driving superior customer experiences. It is also pushing partners to focus on improving their skills and capabilities.

Brother International

Brother Authorized Partner Program

Ryan Warsaw, VP, Sales

Brother sees print management as a market opportunity where partners can generate revenue by providing professional services including product infrastructure management and customizing workflow solutions for print devices.

Buffalo Americas

Buffalo Partner Program

Bill Rhodes, Director, Channel Sales

The Buffalo Partner Program is open to VARs, systems integrators and IT solution providers and provides one-on-one collaboration with dedicated account managers and rebates.

Check Point Software Technologies

Check Point Partner Growth Progtam

Frank Rauch, Head of Worldwide Channel Sales

Check Point is listening to partners and is focused on increasing margins and value through professional services programs, growth through customer analytics and prospecting programs, and shortening sales cycles through demos and sales tools.

Ciena

Ciena Partner Network Program

Matt Cook, VP, Global Partners

At Ciena, more certifications and training to support partner enablement are coming as is an NFR program to enhance partners’ go-to-market. It also is expanding partner event activities as more in-person meetings take place.

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

Dynabook Separates From The Channel Pack Q. Why would a reseller choose to work with Dynabook?

A. Two things come to mind: inventory and our long heritage in the laptop industry,

coupled with our invigorated companywide channel focus. During the past two years through the pandemic, Dynabook—formerly Toshiba PC Company— delivered orders in weeks while our competitors were quoting four-to-five-month delivery windows.

To champion our heritage and rally around the channel, we made several major changes to the organization, including the adoption of a “Channel First, Channel Best” strategy; the addition of eight people to support both the large national solution providers like CDW, SHI, Zones and the always growing SMB channel. We also transformed our preferred partner program into a robust three-tier program with significant benefits. Elements of the program include a special bid desk, deal registration, try before buy, demo discounts, a build to order configurator, market development funds and lead generation capabilities.

A. Our relationship with Foxconn provided our product planning team with the vis-

ibility into the supply chain and garnered a significant competitive advantage. With this line of sight, we stayed ahead of the shortages many other manufacturers faced.

We provided thought leadership to our end users on their buying choices, steering them into components and specs that could be fulfilled faster. By having availability and inventory in the channel with SKUs in stock that are ready to ship—which few manufacturers have today—we picked up market share. We deliver products when customers need them.

Our business is growing at a 30 to 40 percent sequential growth rate each quarter because of our supply chain visibility and prowess, which allows us to acquire net-new customers. We have proven our ability to deliver, and the industry is taking notice.

Q. What is Dynabook’s “Channel First, Channel Best” strategy?

A. Our “Channel First, Channel Best” strategy is simple: We’re a channel company,

one team, driving toward one goal, which is serving the needs of our customers. It’s how we’re growing the company by scaling through the channel, especially with the deep brand heritage and relationships we have. The channel will be our true driving force for growth.

Sr. Director of US Channel Sales

“

We positioned the organization perfectly and will continue to invest and expand in the channel to grow faster. At the end of the day, if you’re looking for a partner that is easy to work with and can deliver orders in a timely fashion—Dynabook is the right choice.

“

Q. How does the Foxconn relationship help Dynabook with supply chain?

Richard Vaughn

We’ve developed a degree of faith and trust within the reseller community for our brand and mobile computing solutions. We understand that committing fully to the channel via NSPs, MSPs and traditional VARs gives Dynabook tremendous reach and will allow the organization to scale quickly.

For more information go to

https://dynabookpartnerprogram.com/

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2 0 2 2 PA R T N E R P R O G R A M G U I D E Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

Cisco Partner Program

Oliver Tuszik, SVP, Global Partner Sales

Cisco’s priorities are to evolve the Cisco Partner Program to align specializations to the value partners deliver, focus on customer life-cycle practices, and maximize partner value through differentiation, transformation and value exchange.

Citrix Systems

Citrix Partner Success

Mark Palomba, SVP, Partner Sales, Ecosystems

Citrix is simplifying its partner experience. The company will offer a success cloud renewal rebate and update the cloud adoption rebate incentive. It also will increase transaction flexibility when leveraging marketplaces and hyperscalers.

Claroty

Claroty Focus Partner Program

Keith Carter, VP, Worldwide Channels, Alliances

Following the acquisition of Medigate, the Focus Program will evolve to leverage the Medigate channel’s health-care expertise alongside the Claroty channel’s industrial expertise. All partners will be supported with enhanced tools and incentives.

Cloudflare

Cloudflare Channel and Alliances Partner Program

Matthew Harrell, Global Head of Channels, Alliances

Cloudflare’s focus is on increasing the overall percentage of company revenue that comes through the channel and boosting the amount of professional services going through partners.

Cloudian

Cloudian Partner Program

Lori Wronsky, Director, Channel Marketing

Cloudian’s goals for 2022 are twofold: The company aims to add more qualified partners and boost the amount of net-new accounts coming through all partners.

Code

Code Alliance

Emily Scales, Sr. Channel Marketing Manager

Code’s new channel program includes different categories for different types of partners and better benefits. This innovative new program caters to specific types of partners and what they need.

Code42

Code42 Accelerate Partner Program

Faraz Siraj, VP, Channel Sales

Code42’s Incydr continues to see explosive growth.

Partners contributed significantly as the company went to a 100 percent channel model, and deal registrations and incremental revenue grew over 100 percent.

Cogent Communications

Cogent Channel Partner Program

Rob Keres, Director, Channel Sales

The Cogent Channel Partner Program is focused on national telecommunications master agents who carry Cogent’s internet access and Ethernet VPN services.

Cohesity

Cohesity Channel Partner Program

Mike Houghton, VP, Global Partner Organization

Cohesity will continue to focus on enhancing the partner portal to provide features for partners to easily manage their business.

It will deliver additional training and enablement content for sales, technical and marketing to help partners grow.

Comcast Business

Comcast Business Solutions Provider Program

Craig Schlagbaum, SVP, Channel Chief

The Comcast Business Solutions Provider Program team has one goal: to help partners sell. The company helps partners sell the right set of solutions to customers of every size and in every industry.

CommScope

PartnerPro Network

Commscope plans to improve the ease of doing business Karen Pugliese, Partner Leader, with the company and better reward those partners that Americas demonstrate a higher degree of technical competency.

Cisco Systems

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Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

Commvault

Commvault Partner Advantage Program

John Tavares, VP, Worldwide Channels, Alliances

Commvault will continue rewarding partners for accelerated enablement and performance across the portfolio and invest with them to drive demand and land new customers. It also will use its program stack to keep building momentum with MSPs.

Congruity360

Congruity360 Partner Program

Morgan Hartley, Director, Global Channels

Congruity360 plans to create brand awareness by building a top-notch partner program to complement its data management offering. It also aims to accelerate partners’ success through enhanced on-boarding and enablement.

Contentstack

Contentstack Catalyst Program

Peter Fogelsanger, VP, Partnerships, Enablement

Contentstack’s partner program includes solution providers and complementary technology providers. Its cross-product support program benefits joint customers of technology partners and is a value-add to solution providers.

Corelight

Corelight Channel Program

Rick Beattie, VP, Sales

Corelight will focus on tighter alignment with alliance and channel partners.

Coupa

Coupa Partner Connect

Roger Goulart, EVP, Business Development, Alliances

Coupa is looking to grow its program so that the majority of customers have a partner involved in the sales and implementation cycle. It will continue to ensure customer success, focus on results and strive for excellence with partners.

Cox Business

Cox Business Channel Program

John Muscarella, Executive Director, Indirect Channel Sales

Cox Business’ goals for 2022 include increased alignment, support and co-selling with its cloud solutions offered by RapidScale. It also is working to develop stronger alignment with direct technology service distributors and brokers.

Cradlepoint

Cradlepoint Global Partner Program

Eric Purcell, SVP, Partner, Alliance Sales

Cradlepoint will be providing a more comprehensive program for MSPs and technology alliances. This will allow these partners to appropriately position the company’s offerings and a supporting infrastructure.

Creatio

Creatio Partner Program

Alex Donchuk, SVP, Alliances, Partnerships

One of Creatio’s focuses for 2022 is to help partners grow their business by developing solutions. The company offers up to 80 percent partner margin for solutions they develop, which allows them to significantly increase their revenue.

Critical Start

Critical Start MDR Channel Program

Dwayne Myers, VP, Channels, Alliances

Through its channel program Critical Start enables its network of nationwide partners to grow their role as trusted advisers to their customers with Critical Start services and technologies from top EDR and SIEM vendors.

Ctera

Ctera Cloud Accelerator Program

Limor Bakal, EVP, Marketing, Business Operations

Ctera enables partners to easily transition customers from legacy storage systems to cloud-based services without compromising the privacy or performance of file data.

CyberArk

CyberArk Partner Program

Chris Moore, VP, Global Channels

CyberArk’s program will remain fairly consistent in 2022 with an emphasis on value creation as it builds out a program for 2023.

It will launch a referral and influence offering with a focus on enabling and aligning partners for customer success.

CyberPower

CyberPower Channel Partner Alliance

Scott Koller, VP, Channel Sales

Cyberpower’s priority is to efficiently get MDF to topperforming partners to help grow their business. It also will distribute an increased number of end-user and website leads to partners for more power project opportunities.

CyberSaint

CyberStrong Certified Partner Program

Jerry Layden, CEO

Partners can leverage CyberSaint’s CyberStrong platform to expand their cybersecurity offerings and grow their business.

The company is recruiting MSP and MSSP partners who want to expand their cybersecurity risk and compliance practices.

CyCognito

CyCognito Partner Program

Lori Cornmesser, VP, Worldwide Channel Sales

CyCognito is engaging with channel partners and customers to bring the combined value of its channel program and Attack Surface Management & Protection platform to the market locally and globally.

APRIL 2022

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Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

Cynet

Cynet Partner Program

Royi Barnea, Head of Channel Sales, North America

Cynet’s program has been designed to drive partner growth through loyalty over time. As partners continue to grow with the company, the goal is that they will advance through the tiers and enjoy the profitability that can come along with it.

Cytracom

Cytracom Partner Program

John Tippett, COO

Cytracom’s goal is to connect the modern workforce with voice and messaging offerings that are simple for MSPs to sell and support.

Cyxtera

Cyxtera Partner Network

Nick Voth, VP, Global Channel Strategies, Sales

Cyxtera’s focus will be on the acceleration of the channel business across all routes to market, optimizing the referral route, growing the solution provider route and continuing to build out the ecosystem partner program.

Datto

Datto Global Partner Program

Brooke Cunningham, CMO Rob Rae, SVP, Business Development

Datto is evolving the partner program by enhancing current benefits and adding new incentives and benefits, such as partner sales education, new collateral, and a new lead generation education and program.

DDN

PartnerLink

Kimberly Moran-Blad, Head of Field, Channel Marketing

DDN’s partner ecosystem includes global solution partners, resellers and technology partners who work with the company’s data management and storage products and services for data-intensive tasks.

deepwatch

Accelerate Partner Program

Todd Bice, VP, Channel, Alliances

With a 100 percent channel go-to-market strategy, deepwatch is building on its strong foundation with a channel program designed to take advantage of its modern and innovative MDR capabilities.

Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies Partner Program

Rola Dagher, Global Channel Chief

Dell is optimizing the partner experience by maximizing growth and enabling business transformation. This year, all partners will follow a consistent program structure, delivered by one incentive structure and one set of training requirements.

Devo

Devo Drive Partner Program

Gary Pelczar, VP, Global Alliances

The Devo Drive Partner Program empowers resellers, MSPs, systems integrators, technology providers and other partners to deliver the full benefits of Devo cloud-native logging and security analytics.

DH2i

DxAdvantage Partner Program

Connor Cox, Director, Business Development, Product Manager

The No. 1 goal for DH2i’s partner program in 2022 is to increase its partners’ revenue by 60 percent year over year.

Dialpad

Dialpad Channel Program

Mike Kane, SVP, Worldwide Channel Sales

Dialpad is elevating the partner ecosystem experience and awareness of and with the company by providing top-notch industry support and enablement. It is also doubling down on education and activation.

Digital Guardian

Synergy Partner Program

Renee Ritter, Managing Director, Global Partner Progam

Digital Guardian plans to increase new business fulfilled through the channel compared with 2021.

Digitate

Elevate Partner Program

Lou Sassano, Global Head, Channels

Digitate aims to increase partner portal engagement, boost demand generation activities with partners, significantly grow partner revenue and continue recruiting strategic partners with aligned business model, skills and industry expertise.

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

The VMware Cloud-Smart Ecosystem: Driving Customer Impact, Business Growth Companies around the world are shifting to multi-cloud environments. They want the freedom and control to work in the clouds that best meet their needs and foster innovation. Because multi-cloud environments can be complex, a huge need has arisen for expert guidance to navigate these complexities.

VMware is committed to help customers overcome these barriers and to make it easier and more profitable for VMware partners to thrive in the role of trusted advisor.

The Need for Multi-Cloud Services and Expertise To support customers in running their multi-cloud environments, VMware recently launched VMware Cross-Cloud Services, an integrated portfolio of SaaS solutions to build, run, manage and secure all apps across clouds. These services are concentrated in a single control plane that orchestrates multi-cloud management across a customer’s entire cloud estate, providing both flexibility and control while accelerating application development and modernization.

Together, We Are the Cloud-Smart Ecosystem Partners provide extraordinary value to customers through their own domain expertise and areas of specialization. Not only are VMware partners attuned to their customers’ specific technology needs, they are also indispensable in delivering VMware Cross-Cloud Services, ensuring customers everywhere can be Cloud-Smart with VMware technology.

VMware’s Cloud-Smart Ecosystem strategy enables partners to bring the benefits of Cross-Cloud Services to their customers. VMware partners will see this strategy reflected in tools and financial incentives that enable them to drive “outcomes as a service” and create customers for life.

Focused on Customer Outcomes and Partner Success VMware is as dedicated to the success of our partners and customer outcomes. That’s why VMware is building an industry-leading partner experience that activates their full potential and streamlines how we do business together. VMware’s incentive portfolio has continued to expand across the customer lifecycle, including offsetting partners’ deployment services costs for all their SaaS and subscriptions services in addition to helping expand their footprint through incentives for performing assessments and proofs of concept.

Learn more about VMware’s Cloud-Smart Ecosystem and how VMware provides greater opportunities and bigger rewards for invested partners. https://blogs.vmware.com/partner/2021/12/vmware-evolving-partnerstrategy-to-deliver-cloud-smart-ecosystem.html

“

Vice President, Partner Programs and Experience

With the VMware CloudSmart Ecosystem, we’re entering a new era of how we work with our partners—one that recognizes the value they bring to both VMware and our joint customers and that rewards our partners financially and with greater opportunity.

“

Many VMware customers are taking advantage of Cross-Cloud Services to save time and increase efficiency. Others want to focus on innovation, staying ahead of the competition and growing their business. These customers often need help with the in-house skills to be what we call Cloud-Smart—knowing how to use the right services, on the right cloud and at the right time for a given workload. Because many of these customers have long counted on VMware partners to provide such practical guidance, they are turning again to partners to become Cloud-Smart.

Tracy-Ann Palmer

2022

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Channel Program

Druva

Druva Compass Partner Robert Brower, SVP, Partners, Program Alliances

In 2021, Druva launched its MSP program and inked a partnership with Arrow. In 2022, it will work to expand its partner ecosystem through global distribution and by partnering with new MSPs in Asia-Pacific, North America and EMEA.

Dynabook Americas

Dynabook Partner Program

Richard Vaughn, Sr. Director, U.S. Channel Sales

Last year, Dynabook rolled out a "channel-first, channel-best" strategy and experienced a great deal of success. Throughout the year, it modified elements of the strategy and is set to build upon last year’s success, including inventory availability.

Eaton

PowerAdvantage Partner Program

Herve Tardy, VP, Marketing, Strategy, Critical Power, Digital Infrastructure

Following the acquisition of Tripp Lite, Eaton is continuing to strengthen its relationships with new and current partners.

Aligning business plans, investments and the value of learning will be paramount to partner success.

Eleveo

Eleveo Partner Program

Barry Williams, VP, Sales, Product

The most effective way Eleveo is serving partners is to continue developing advanced contact center features and functions to strengthen its value proposition to partners’ customers and prospects.

Epicor

Epicor Channel Partner Community Program

Brenda Nobleza, Sr. Director, Channel Sales, Operations Americas

Epicor’s goals for 2022 will align with its corporate goals, which are SaaS growth and customer migrations from onpremises to SaaS.

eSentire

eSentire Partner Program

Bob Layton, Chief Channel Officer

ESentire will launch additional route-to-market program experiences, release updates for additional automation, visibility and support, and enhance the partner recognition and rewards program.

ESET North America

ESET Partner Connect Program

Ryan Grant, VP, Sales

As ESET looks to grow its channel partners, it is focused on partner journeys and new tools—customized for MSPs and traditional VARs—that empower them to expand without a significant amount of time, attention or resources.

Everbridge

Everbridge Partner Program

Jasmina Mulleri, VP, Global Channel Partnerships

Everbridge will launch a new partner portal, offer more opportunities to leverage the partner program and work more closely with channel partners.

Exabeam

Exabeam Partner Program

Ted Plumis, VP, Channels, Business, Corporate Development

Exabeam hired a dedicated partner services manager to revamp and relaunch its program. This allowed the company to enable more partners to deliver Exabeam services and also include them in its customer life-cycle program.

ExaGrid

ExaGrid Reseller Partner Program

Andy Walsky, VP, Sales, EMEA, Asia-Pacific

ExaGrid works with resellers and distributors worldwide, offering programs designed to be easy for partners with support from the ExaGrid sales team and without milestone commitments.

Expedient

RISE

John McKenna, VP, Strategic Initiatives

Expedient aims to increase the overall percentage of sales and double revenue generated by partners.

ExtraHop

ExtraHop Panorama Partner Program

Mark Fitzmaurice, VP, Worldwide Channel Sales

ExtraHop plans to increase live events with solution providers and their customers and prospects. The company also will offer higher margins for partner-initiated wins.

Extreme Networks

Extreme Partner Program

Joe Vitalone, CRO

Extreme will focus on migrating partners to cloud solutions, improving their technical skills, increasing the number of netnew accounts coming via the partner network, and enhancing their experience with new tools and training.

F5

F5 Unity+ Partner Program

Lisa Citron, VP, Global Channel Sales

F5’s evolution to a multi-cloud application security and delivery company will be accelerated by partners embracing its new Adaptive Application architecture, new solution offerings and flexible consumption programs.

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Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

Automate Data Capture To Accelerate Business Performance With Kodak Alaris Q. What solutions does Kodak Alaris deliver?

A. Kodak Alaris is a leading provider of information capture solutions that simplify and

automate business processes. We exist to help the world make sense of information with smart, connected solutions powered by decades of image science innovation.

We provide commercial grade scanners, capture software and professional services to create solutions which drive speed, accuracy and profitability into business processes for customers around the world.

It’s no longer enough to simply scan to archive. And it’s not enough to focus only on paper. It’s increasingly important to capture information at the edge or at the point of entry and connect directly to business processes.

A. Paper presents significant hurdles that impact the speed of doing business, security

and privacy risks, remote access and inefficiency. The pandemic magnified these issues as employees mostly became remote. Organizations had to determine how to get documents quickly and securely to employees that were not in shared locations. Kodak Alaris keeps businesses productive with access to the information that is vital to day-today processes and decisions—from anywhere the work is done.

Since launching INfuse in 2019, integrators have worked with Kodak Alaris to develop solutions for broad applications across many use cases including remote work. INfuse is a distributed capture solution, meaning oftentimes, devices are deployed across many locations or across the country.

INfuse includes an Easy Setup feature that allows just about anyone to set up the device with a touch of a button. That eliminates the cost to send an IT professional out to each and every location to complete the setup. Furthermore, Infuse doesn’t require a PC—thus eliminating a vulnerable element of your data capture process.

Leonel da Costa

Americas Sales Managing Director

“

Kodak Alaris is where digital transformation starts. But it’s not where it ends.

“

Q. How has Kodak Alaris supported businesses in adapting to remote work?

Q. Why partner with Kodak Alaris? What’s your value proposition for the channel?

A. Kodak Alaris is dedicated to offering a partner experience that helps expand your

offerings with our portfolio of award-winning distributed and production scanners, software and services. We connect you with more leads through demand generation programs and sales enablers delivered by our new partner portal and enable you to grow profitable revenue, customer satisfaction and repeat business with our lucrative channel program and incentives. Our Partner Program levels reward you for sales and provide the power to find and close deals. The more you sell, the more you make.

Learn more www.alarisworld.com/landing-page/

partner-with-kodak-alaris

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Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

FireMon

Ignite Partner Program

Andrew Warren, VP, Global Channel Sales

FireMon is doubling down on its commitment to the partner ecosystem and ensuring partners have the easiest path forward to sell FireMon through increased enablement and building more services-capable partners.

Five9

Five9 Global Partner Program

Jake Butterbaugh, SVP, Global Partner Sales

Five9 is formalizing a Global Partner Certification and Badging Program and continuing to make enhancements to its partner portal that allow for greater partner access and visibility.

Flexential

Flexential Partner Network

Melissa McCoy, VP, Channel Sales

Flexential will enhance its partner portal with co-marketing capabilities, better opportunity tracking and commission reporting. It also will add certification courses to its partner enablement platform to help partners sell new services.

FloQast

FloQast Partnerships & Alliances Program

Marc Craver, Head of Partnerships, Alliances and Business Development

Partners will continue to be a key driver of the growth of FloQast, and the company is investing heavily in the program throughout North America, EMEA, Asia-Pacific and Latin America.

Fortinet

Engage Partner Program

Jon Bove, VP, North America Channel

Fortinet aims to increase the amount of professional services going through partners, encourage partners to sell more of the Security Fabric as customers look to consolidate, and continue to enhance its managed services offering.

Genesys

Ascend Partner Program

Ken Archer, SVP, Global Channel Sales

Genesys has built a culture around channel-first, not just channel-friendly. It has brought in leaders to build sustaining channel assets, doubled channel head count, on-boarded 154 new partnerships, and collapsed time to revenue substantially.

Geoverse

Geoverse Partner Program 2.0

Bob Gault, Chief Commercial Officer

Geoverse is focusing on identifying, selecting, training and equipping Elite-level partners for post-sales support, including RF design, site surveys and deployments.

Gigamon

Catalyst Channel Program

Larissa Crandall, VP, Worldwide Channel, Alliances

Gigamon is continuing to provide access to demand generation resources and investment for partners.The company saw success with partners utilizing content to drive strong ROI with the tools and content provided, and that will be a big focus in 2022.

GitLab

GitLab Partner Program

Michelle Hodges, VP, Worldwide Channels

In 2022, GitLab aims to elevate partners’ skills in key areas such as DevSecOps and AI/ML. Partner training programs and enhanced accessibility for developers and business leaders are top priorities this year.

Gluware

Gluware Partner Program

Colin Henry, VP, Channel Sales

Gluware is looking to double the number of new logo customers being driven through the channel. This will be done by investing in channel services enablement alongside investment in strategic channel demand generation programs.

Google Cloud

Google Cloud Partner Advantage

Kevin Ichhpurani, VP, Global Partner Ecosystem

As digital transformation continues to drive significant customer demand for the cloud and, more importantly, a need for services, support and solutions from partners, Google Cloud’s goal is to help partners address the demand in these areas.

HashiCorp

HashiCorp Partner Network

Michelle Graff, Sr. Director, Partner Sales

HashiCorp’s goals include enhancing investments and rewards to partners for influencing customer acquisition and customer adoption and retention through new competency programs, advisory services training and incentive funds.

HelpSystems

HelpSystems Global Partner Program

Renee Ritter, Managing Director, Global Partner Program

HelpSystems aims to launch its new global partner program and realize increased revenue growth over 2021 that is fulfilled through partners.

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

Micro Focus Pinpoints Partner Success Q. What’s new with the Micro Focus Partner Program that partners should know about?

Q. What’s your elevator pitch for encouraging prospective partners to take advantage of the Micro Focus Partner Program?

A. Our channel partners benefit from the depth and breadth of our portfolio to help customers run and transform to thrive in the digital world. We focus on four solution areas: accelerate application delivery, simplify IT transformation, strengthen cyber resilience and analyze data in time to act. Partners can cross-sell and upsell into these areas across the entire Micro Focus product set coupled with a strong partner program that allows for the profitability they expect.

Learn More https://www.microfocus.com/en-us/home

Jon Kozimor

Director of North America Channels

“

The Micro Focus channel community continues to offer unique solutions and IP-based offerings to further drive successful customer outcomes, creating long-term success and increased partner profitability.

“

A. The Micro Focus Partner Program in 2022 will continue to reward partners who become enabled across our full portfolio of products.

The program benefits align to partner-found and led opportunities, partner period-over-period growth and enablement/certification. This year we have placed a greater emphasis on SaaS, further enabling the partner community and investing in joint marketing programs with MDF investment to fuel pipeline growth. Lastly, the Micro Focus channel community continues to offer unique solutions and IP-based offerings to further drive successful customer outcomes, creating long-term success and increased partner profitability.

2022

2 0 2 2 PA R T N E R P R O G R A M G U I D E Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

HPE Partner Ready Program

George Hope, Worldwide Head of Partner Sales

HPE aims to increase the number of partners embarking on the XaaS journey and leveraging the company’s edge-to-cloud vision, strategic initiatives, mature partner ecosystem, and streamlined processes and tools to keep pace with change.

Hitachi Vantara

Hitachi Vantara Partner Kimberly King, SVP, Global Program Strategic Partners, Alliances

HP Inc.

HP Amplify Program

Kobi Elbaz, GM, Global Channel Organization

HP will be building upon the successful foundation set with the launch of the HP Amplify program in the commercial space while launching a retail version of Amplify in fiscal year 2022.

HYCU

Global Partner PACE Program

Jose Rangel, Director, Channel Development, North America

HYCU’s goal is to make it easy to be a partner and to help each partner, regardless of tier, offer the most innovative and compelling solutions for their customers and maximize their own revenue opportunities.

IBM

IBM PartnerWorld Program

Kate Woolley, GM, Ecosystem

IBM’s program framework is now aligned to the activities of Build, Service and Sell. The new Build Track gives tailored benefits and offers for Build Partners. The Service Track provides tailored benefits and offers for Service Partners.

iboss

iboss Partner Program

Matt Hartley, CRO

Iboss launched its first formal partner program in 2021 to support more channel-delivered service offerings. A key goal is using rebates and partner representative rewards to incentivize partners to capture new business opportunities.

IFS

IFS Partner Network

Merlin Knott, Global Head of Partner, Channels

IFS aims to increase the overall percentage of company revenue that comes through the channel and see partners drive more indirect revenue on their own paper.

IGEL

IGEL Velocity

Balaji Subramanian, SVP, Global Channel Chief

In 2022, IGEL will be migrating away from offering generic program elements and instead will focus on creating bespoke programs that are more meaningful and relevant to elite and strategic partners.

iland, an 11:11 Systems Company

iland Partner Program

Koorosh Khashayar, VP, Global Channels

Iland will be expanding its service offering and will be focused on training partners on these new services. It also will concentrate on technical enablement so partners can uncover additional cross-sell and upsell opportunities.

Illumio

Illumio Enlighten Partner Program

John Ryan, VP, North American Channel Sales

Illumio will dramatically expand the number of partners in its global ecosystem, focusing on select, strategic partnerships and enabling partners to accelerate their profitability through training, enablement and incentives.

Immersive Labs

Channel 2.0

For 2022, Immersive Labs’ channel focus will be to further Jake Alosco, Sr. Director, Global develop its partner-led services program, which will enable partners to develop recurring revenue opportunities and Channel Sales upsell within different technologies.

Imperva

Imperva Partner Program

Micheal McCollough, Global VP, Strategic Growth

Imperva will expand its program offerings to incent and enable partners to accelerate their growth and deliver on its mission to protect customers’ data and all paths to it. This includes enabling higher profitability through new revenue streams.

Infinidat

Infinidat Channel Partner Program

Mitch Diodato, Director, Channel Sales, U.S.

Infinidat plans to expand within its existing partner base and focus on strategic recruiting in white space, making sure it is not stacking partners to avoid channel conflict. The company is ensuring that all new business will be with a channel partner.

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Hitachi Vantara plans to continue to elevate and improve the partner experience, accelerate go-to-market speeds, increase automation and partner flexibility, expand collaboration opportunities and improve partner profitability.

Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

Infiot

Infiot Partner Program

Parag Thakore, CEO

Infiot invests in its partners’ success and wants them to leverage its offerings and available resources effectively. The goal is for partners to increase the amount of deployment and services that go through them.

Infoblox

BuildingBlox Partner Program

Chris Millerick, VP, Channels, Alliances

Infoblox is evolving the BuildingBlox partner program’s pricing and incentives accordingly with an eye on maximizing partners’ profitability. Partners can look forward to simplification and revised incentives with cybersecurity as the cornerstone.

Ingram Micro Cloud

Ingram Micro Cloud Security Expert Program

Paul Bay, CEO

Ingram Micro helps partners sell and implement the distributor’s cybersecurity offerings with its Sonar Sales Framework, providing tools and services including pre-sales assessments, product recommendation and more.

Ingram Micro

Ingram Micro SMB Alliance

Kirk Robinson, EVP, President, North America

In 2022, Ingram Micro is working to generate even greater community engagement, including peer-to-peer and vendorto-partner. In 2021 the SMB Alliance and U.S. SMB sales once again grew by strong double digits.

Ingram Micro

Ingram Micro Trust X Alliance

Kirk Robinson, EVP, President, North America

Ingram Micro is designing a highly engaged ecosystem for members, vendors and Ingram Micro to collaborate. It also is defining, planing and marketing value stories for programs within the Trust X Alliance to drive stakeholder success.

INKY Technology

INKY Partner Program

Shlomi Gian, CRO

INKY invested significantly in its partner program over the past year. Dedicated channel resources in sales, marketing and customer success, along with incentive programs, are enabling faster growth and profitability.

Intel

Intel Partner Alliance

John Kalvin, VP, GM, Global Scale, Partners

Intel is continuing to on-board partners of its legacy programs and recruit new partners across the ecosystem. The company also is driving unique training and competencies to partners to help enable them for the future.

IntelePeer

IntelePeer Apex Partner Program

Brent Earlewine, SVP, Channel Sales

IntelePeer’s Apex Partner Program enables partners to select their preferred engagement model, whether as a seller, builder or both. Revenue commitment tiers define partner roles in the channel and establish revenue commitments for them.

IntelePeer

Apex Partner Program

Will Pope, Manager, Channel Sales

IntelePeer'sApex Partner Program enables partners to select their preferred engagement model, whether a seller, builder or both. Additional certification tracks and requirements are added for partners to maintain tiers.

Intermedia Cloud Communications

Intermedia Partner Accelerate

Jonathan McCormick, COO, Head of Sales

Intermedia Partner Accelerate offers two partner models: the Customer Ownership Reseller model allows partners to set their own price points and brand Intermedia’s solutions as their own; the Advisor program delivers attractive, recurring commissions.

Intuit

QuickBooks Solution Provider program

Gavin Orleow, VP, Worldwide Channel Sales

Intuit introduced a reseller commercial model, an economic approach to help the IT channel strengthen their portfolios and expand to back-office business apps.

Ivanti

Ivanti Partner Program

Matt Reedman, VP, Global Channels, Operations

Ivanti will be providing a new portal that allows a personal, contextual user experience and will enable sales process efficiencies, including a new marketing enablement portal that will support net-new and cross-sell initiatives.

APRIL 2022

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2 0 2 2 PA R T N E R P R O G R A M G U I D E Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

Jumio

Jumio Partner Network

Stan de Boisset, Global VP, Channels, Alliances

Jumio works with integrators, resellers, technology partners and alliance partners to bring its identity verification and authentication technology to market.

Juniper Networks

Juniper Partner Advantage

Gordon Mackintosh, VP, Global Channels, Virtual Sales

Continued investments in Juniper’s partner program for 2022 will accelerate strong partnerships and continue the company and its partners on the path of hypergrowth.

Kaspersky

Kaspersky United

Matthew Courchesne, Head of Channel, North America

Kaspersky this year aims to add more qualified partners and boost the number of net-new accounts coming through the channel.

Keyfactor

Keyfactor Partner Network

BJ Ferguson, VP, Global Channel Sales, Operations

Keyfactor has a company goal to implement and establish a more formal partner delivery program. It aims to engage with partners for delivery of Keyfactor products in 50 percent of deals won by mid-2022.

KnowBe4

KnowBe4 Partner Program

Tony Jennings, SVP, Global Channel, International Sales

Providing partners with a more automated way to go to market is one of KnowBe4’s key focuses. It will continue to create localized content to better support its growing global partner base.

Kodak Alaris

Kodak Alaris Partner Program

Maia Mosillo, Global Channel Marketing Director

Kodak Alaris is focused on partner expansion, including adding more integrators, developers and partners that are well equipped to deliver software and cloud-based solutions.

Laura Blackmer, SVP, Dealer Sales

Konica Minolta is focusing on its dealer program.

Taylor Grosso, Director, Channel Sales, Customer Success, Americas

In 2022, Laserfiche intends to grow its marketplace even further and bring the channel and user communities closer together.

Konica Minolta Konica Minolta Dealer Business Solutions Program U.S.A. Laserfiche

Laserfiche Solution Provider Program

Lenovo

Lenovo Partner Engage Pascal Bourguet, VP, Global Program Channel Chief

Lenovo North America President Vladimir Rozanovich is counting on partners to help the vendor capture more market share and mindshare from competitors, offering new channel incentives and taking PC as a Service to a new level.

Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group

Lenovo Partner Engage Pascal Bourguet, VP, Global Program Channel Chief

Lenovo ISG has been promoting the “One Lenovo” concept where, under the Lenovo 360 Partner Program, channel partners can easily leverage the offerings of the intelligent devices and data center infrastructure businesses.

Lexmark International

PartnerNet

Greg Chavers, VP, North America Channel

Lexmark accelerated the movement of enterprise managed print services practices to partners with Lexmark Cloud Service offerings, giving them a powerful toolset to more effectively manage and service their customer fleets remotely.

Lightbits Labs

Go Purple

Kam Eshghi, CSO

Lightbits will be launching a Partner Advisory Council and accreditation and certification programs.

Liongard

Liongard

Joe Alapat, CEO

Liongard’s new Endpoint Visibility is designed to advance its mission to deliver unified visibility across the stack.

Liqid

Liqid Channel Partner Program

Nader Sudah, VP, Channel

Liqid’s goal this year is to improve partner technical and sales expertise and boost the amount of professional services going through partners.

LiveVox

ACTivate

Dan DeLozier, Head/AVP, Global Channel Sales

LiveVox will focus on supporting Elite partners with demand generation and sales tools to drive growth and aims to launch enablement programs to support lower-tier partners achieving growth to transition into the Elite tier.

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

Eaton Fosters Partner Growth Opportunities Q. What has changed about Eaton’s partner program in the past 12 months?

A. As we continue to engage, enable and recruit partners, we’re also evolving with

them. In the last year we added numerous training and webinars both as a source of knowledge for our partners and as a quick, digestible snapshot of our portfolio with the goal of helping them sell with confidence. The market is changing rapidly, and our partners can expect a nimble response from our organization along with enhancements that will help them sell our enhanced portfolio.

Q. What aspects of the Eaton Partner Program aren’t as well known that you think would be a benefit for your partners at this time?

Donna St-Denis

A. A true gem in the PowerAdvantage program is the Marketing Development Fund

Q. What should prospective partners know about Eaton’s program that they might not already?

A. Our program benefits outweigh the requirements! Furthermore, our requirements

to level up to our highest partner level are easy to achieve. Our partners can trust us to be the power experts and we want to help them feel comfortable and supported once they join our partner community. Whether you are an MSP looking to create a practice with recurring power management revenue or a VAR that rarely sells power, our program can help you get started.

Q. With the Tripp Lite acquisition, the portfolio has expanded. What’s in it for partners at this point?

A. With an acquisition of this caliber, what we can promise partners is minimum

disruption on how they are used to dealing with both Eaton and Tripp Lite by Eaton.

Programmatically, we started consolidating where it would add the most benefit to our partners. For example, we have enhanced our reward program to include Tripp Lite by Eaton products in our bonus program. We are working diligently behind the scenes to create the best program experience. This year promises to be an exciting one for our channel partners as we provide access to more solutions, more rewards and more value!

For more information go to

www.poweradvantage.eaton.com

Channel Marketing Manager

“

This year promises to be an exciting one for our channel partners as we provide access to more solutions, more rewards and more value!

“

(MDF) program. If I were an IT partner, I would look at this closely as Eaton can help them (within certain parameters) create their own leads. As an example, if a partner knows of a local tradeshow and wishes to participate while highlighting Eaton’s solutions, they can finance it via MDF. We have also created digital assets that are easily customizable and that they can use to reach their customers via their own CRM tools.

2 0 2 2 PA R T N E R P R O G R A M G U I D E Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

LogicMonitor

LogicMonitor Partner Network

Michael Tarbet, VP, Global Head of MSP

The MSP market is growing due to the acceleration of modern technology and the need for streamlined IT functions. To help partners, LogicMonitor released hundreds of core and cloud expansions to let them monitor more technologies for customers.

LogMeIn

LogMeIn Partner Network

Patrick McCue, VP, Global Channel Sales

LogMeIn will continue the transformation of its program by adding new partner models to reach a wider range of customers and streamlining its products and program so partners can more easily work with the company.

Lookout

Lookout Partner Program

Eva-Maria Elya, Sr. Director, Worldwide Channel Sales

Lookout will ensure predictability, profitability and ease of doing business. The company also will continue to invest in partners through the Lookout Partner Academy and the Lookout Champion Program, an exclusive technical partner community.

Loqate, a GBG solution

Loqate Global Partner Program

Justin Duling, SVP, Commercial Director

Loqate will focus on maintaining renewals at a high level and enabling steady growth from enterprise partners. It also will accelerate recruitment and sales and marketing enablement of midmarket partners.

Lumen Technologies

Lumen Channel Partner Program

Dave Young, SVP, Strategic Sales

Lumen built a reinvigorated indirect organization with a dual focus on driving sales with partners and channel management.

It also created a growth team with dedicated resources focused on improvements to grow the indirect business.

Malwarebytes

MP3 Channel Program

Brian Thomas, VP, Worldwide MSP, Channel

Malwarebytes has been developing a new Partner Experience Center providing training, MDF requests, deal registration, tier status tracking and self-serve assets from a single portal.

Megaport (USA)

Megaport PartnerVantage

Rodney Foreman, CRO

Megaport is focused on increasing long-term value for customers and partners by providing a channel-driven organization. It also is leveraging distributor relationships to reach new partners and customers around the world.

Menlo Security

Americas Channel

Danielle Wilson, Director, Americas Channel

A recent Menlo Security report says only 27 percent of organizations have advanced threat protection on every endpoint device that can access corporate applications and resources, and ransomware now tops the list of security threats.

M-Files

M-Files Partner Program

Scott Erickson, SVP, Worldwide Channel Sales

M-Files aims to further increase the number of new partners being added to the ecosystem and accelerate growth in channel bookings.

Micro Focus

Micro Focus Partner Program

Mike O’Neill, President, Worldwide Indirect Sales

Micro Focus is working on a number of initiatives and program enhancements throughout 2022 in preparation for a fiscal year 2023 program launch.

Mitel

Mitel Global Partner Program

Daren Finney, SVP, Global Channels

Mitel’s 2022 goals include incorporating customer experience and customer life-cycle management into the program framework and providing partners with the recognition and tools to enable them to expand their business.

Morpheus Data

Morpheus Data MVP

Gul Paryani, VP, Global Channels

Morpheus’ 2022 is all about focus. The company never says no to bringing in new partners but it has many that are quickly becoming experts. Success will come from spending the right amount of time to ensure their success as well.

N-able

N-able Partner Program

Frank Colletti, EVP, Worldwide Sales

N-able is partner-led and extremely focused on the success of its partners. In 2022, it will continue to support the team and work to lead the healthy growth of the industry and the betterment of all MSPs worldwide.

NetApp

NetApp Unified Partner Program

Jenni Flinders, SVP, Worldwide Partner Organization

The key to success lies with the move to cloud and being able to support customers’ diverse ways of consuming NetApp products and solutions. NetApp is focused on being easy to do business with and ensuring that partners have a clear path to success.

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Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

NetDocuments

NetDocuments Partner Reza Parsia, VP, Strategic Program Partnerships

NetDocuments aims to double the enablement of technical certifications and the number of new partners in its SMB, corporate, government and international segments of partners.

Netenrich

NetEnrich Partner Program

Justin Crotty, SVP, Channels

Netenrich’s platform for delivering virtual/managed NOC solutions lets partners offer stellar service without disruption, while continuing to grow revenue.

Netskope

Netskope Evolve Partner Program

David Rogers, VP, Worldwide Alliances, Channel Sales

Netskope’s revamped Evolve Partner Program will elevate partners’ ability to seize the security service edge opportunity.

New benefits, combined with the evolution of cloud, data and network security, are a motivating combination for partners.

Netsurion

Netsurion Partner Program

Shavonn Mealing, VP, Channel Sales

Netsurion rolled out its enhanced Netsurion Partner program in 2021 for authorized MSP and MSSP channel partners, offering additional performance-based financial incentives and expanded try-before-you-buy options.

NetWitness

NetWitness Partner Program

Corne van Rooij, Global Head of Indirect Sales

NetWitness’ primary goal is to grow its channel relationships with top cybersecurity partners to continue addressing customer and prospect demand for highly knowledgeable security resources.

Neustar Security Services

Ultra Secure Partner Program

Jeremy Nicholls, VP, Global Channels

Neustar’s goal for 2022 focuses on the addition of more qualified partners. The company also wants to increase the overall percentage of revenue that comes through the channel.

Nexsan, a StorCentric Company

Nexsan Partner Program

Read Fenner, VP, Global Sales

Nexsan’s goals are to continue to drive its solutions through its best partners and to help them find new Nexsan customers as well as build out the company’s solutions in current Nexsan customers.

Nextiva

NeXus Partner Program

Marc Stein, Global VP, Channel Sales

Nextiva is dedicated to helping partners understand their customers, service them effectively and ensure their loyalty by supporting their needs through increased marketing programs, field sales participation and service.

NinjaOne

NinjaOne Partner Program

Vinh Pham, Director, Channel Sales

In 2022, NinjaOne’s top goal is to dramatically scale up its partner program by bringing in new account management teams to teach partners how to leverage NinjaOne's technology to grow their business.

Nintex

Nintex Partner Program

Joe Peterson, VP, Channel Sales, Strategy

Nintex is focused on increasing cloud adoption with Nintex Workflow Cloud. It also is growing its partner network with the addition of more solution-selling partners and enhancing enablement through training and certifications.

Nitel

Nitel Channel Program

Mark Dickey, CRO

Nitel will grow its channel program, adding local resources to strategic markets across the U.S.

Nozomi Networks

Nozomi Networks Advantage Partner Program

Ivan Foreman, Sr. Director, Global Channel Sales

Nozomi’s goals are to be easy and profitable to do business with.

NS1

NS1 Channel Program

Stacy Desrosiers, Sr. Director, Channels

NS1 has two key goals: transitioning to a channel-first company where the majority if not all deals come through the channel and developing a new tier of partners focused on service delivery.

Nutanix

Nutanix Elevate Partner Christian Goffi, VP, Channel Program Sales, Americas

Nutanix will continue to enhance the Elevate Program to meet its subscription operating model. It is evolving toward a partner profit continuum that aligns partner incentives with Elevate to the customer journey from land to adopt to expand and renew.

APRIL 2022

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2 0 2 2 PA R T N E R P R O G R A M G U I D E Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

Nvidia

Nvidia Partner Network

Alvin Da Costa, VP, Worldwide Partner Organization

Nvidia is focusing on integrating Mellanox Partner First partners into the Nvidia Partner Network. It also aims to develop and launch an ISV Partner Program, including solution validation.

One Identity

One Identity Partner Circle Program

Andrew Clarke, Global Head, Channels, Alliances

One Identity’s goal for 2022 is to lean further into the cloud adoption model, which will require improved training to provide self-sufficiency on setup and deployment to align the partner program with the needs of service providers.

OneStream Software

Strategic Alliances

Stephanie Cramp, SVP, Global Strategic Alliances

OneStream’s 2022 goals include continued growth and education in the global partner ecosystem through expanded certification, training and technical seminars.

OpsRamp

OpsRamp Partner Program

Paul Brodie, VP, Global Channel Sales

The OpsRamp Partner Program works closely with each of its partner organizations to help create and expand new recurring revenue streams in the growing IT operations management market.

Opswat

Opswat Channel Partner Program

Alessandro Porro, VP, Global Channel Sales

Opswat will be further enhancing its enablement road map via expanded certification modules, self-serve demo labs and a bi-weekly programmatic live technical workshop. It also will launch new incentives for attaining revenue benchmarks.

Oracle NetSuite

NetSuite Solution Provider Program

Craig West, VP Alliances, Channels

This year Oracle NetSuite will launch a new global program called SuiteCampus, which is designed to help partners organically build talent within their organization through a four-week dedicated training program for new consultants.

Ordr

Ordr Global Partner Advantage

Eric Berkman, VP, Worldwide Channels

Ordr plans to grow its dedicated channel resources. It will focus resources to ensure top partners are successful and deliver the best customer experience. It also will boost solution campaigns to drive leads in its primary industries and use cases.

Owl Labs

Owl Labs Partner Program

Josh Allen, CRO

Owl Labs plans to more than double international revenue and significantly increase category share within the North America channel.

Palo Alto Networks

NextWave Partner Program

Karl Soderlund, SVP, Worldwide Channel Sales

To help build the partner of tomorrow, Palo Alto Networks’ NextWave program will focus on enabling differentiation, enhancing profitability, expanding opportunities and empowering success.

Panasonic System Solutions Company of North America

Toughbook Authorized Brandon Williams, Director, Mobility Partner U.S. Mobility Channel Program

While the device remains the core of what Panasonic does, it is continuing to build out an ecosystem of solutions and services that allows partners to support customers. This is critical as solution offerings continue to become vertical-specific.

Panduit

Panduit One Partner Program

Philip Taylor, SVP, Customer Experience

Panduit will be focusing on enhancing its partner program this year.

Panzura

Panzura Partner Program

Brian Brogan, VP, Global Channel Sales

Panzura’s Guarantee Program helps customers migrate data to the company’s global file system at no charge and no financial risk. The program, which simplifies the sale and implementation of Panzura’s system, is a benefit to partners.

Park Place Technologies

Park Place Partner Program

Michael Vedda, CRO

With Park Place’s portfolio of data center maintenance, hardware monitoring and network performance, over half of opportunities close in less than 30 days.

Pax8

Wingman Partner Program

Ryan Walsh, Channel Chief, COO

In 2022, Pax8 is focused on empowering partners to thrive in the evolving channel. It is developing innovative new technology, programs and resources to accelerate their cloud practice and acquire new customers.

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

Ciena Partner Network Puts Partners First Q. How does Ciena recently winning the CRN 5-Star Partner Program award demonstrate that you are a “partner first” organization?

A. The Ciena Partner Network has gone through an amazing evolution over the last few years and every modification to the program is made to empower our partners and help them drive additional growth. Our highly customizable and personalized training and certification offering helps our partners choose the paths that best fit their customer base, knowledge level and business needs. It is incredibly exciting to receive the CRN 5-Star Award in recognition of those efforts.

Q. What should prospective partners know about Ciena’s vast and diverse partner program portfolio?

A. Ciena is leading with solutions—including routing and switching, optical and advanced software—that are making next-generation metro and edge networks more open, automated and simple. It’s the only way to truly own the edge and deliver the experiences that our partners’ end-customers expect.

The edge brings big opportunity, but also big change. We’re working closely to help our partners navigate the new challenges and take advantage of the exciting and significant opportunities ahead with certifications and trainings built for their specific needs.

Q. What’s the biggest differentiator of the Ciena Partner Program, and what makes it unique?

A. The Ciena Partner Program is personalized, collaborative and empowering. It’s purpose-built to support partners’ unique business models and to meet the needs of a rapidly changing partner ecosystem. Trainings and certifications, including our just-launched A360 Program, help partners position our joint solutions and tap into and maximize new revenue opportunities. Our learning paths are flexible and minimize the time investment needed to learn about our services.

By sharing our deep strategic market intelligence practice, we support our partners to assess and qualify opportunities, gaining a competitive advantage within the market. In addition, we have a Ciena Automated Lab that lets our certified partners build as simple or as complex a network as needed to be able to simulate traffic, test assumptions and gain network empowerment. Partners come away with the expertise to take what they’ve learned through this hands-on approach into the field and have the confidence to know that they are driving the metro edge network of the future.

We’re engaging deeper than ever with our partners and 2022 is already proving to be one of the most exciting and prosperous years yet!

Matt Cook

VP, Global Partner Organization

Jay Jadeja

Sr. Director, Partner Program Global Partner Organization

Patricia Picco

Director, Global Partner Program Global Partner Organization

Learn more about the Ciena Partner Network.

Visit https://www.ciena.com/partners.

2022

2 0 2 2 PA R T N E R P R O G R A M G U I D E Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

PC Matic

PC Matic Channel Program

Corey Munson, VP

PC Matic offers partners support in building business transformation consulting and planning expertise, managed services operational capability, and vertical market and industry specialization capabilities.

Pega Partners

Carola Cazenave, Head of Global Partner Ecosystem, Pega Channels Chief

Pegasystems’ customer-first, partner-centric transformation strategy is a key lever of growth. As a result, it is evolving and growing the partner ecosystem to shift from a delivery engagement-only model to more mature partnerships.

PlanetOne

PlanetOne Program

Jonathan Hartman, SVP, Sales

PlanetOne will continue to enable partners by helping them uncover opportunities and strengthen their customer relationships. It also will introduce customers utilizing legacy technologies and services to new technologies.

Poly

Poly Partner Program

Nick Tidd, VP, Global Partner Organization

2022 will bring even more enhancements from Poly’s investment in tools and systems, including new dashboards for tracking and forecasting rebates, as well as viewing overall partner profitability across all front- and back-end programs.

Pondurance

Pondurance Channel Partner Program

Tim Horigan, Director, Channel

Pondurance is focused on continued partner recruitment in 2022 and on maturing existing partners, both in the realm of MDR and its other security services, as well as on the sales and marketing programs necessary for success.

Pricefx

Advantage Pricefx

Joe Golemba, VP, Ecosystem, Partners

Pricefx is adding new training and certifications for additional roles and redesigning its Advantage partner portal with new functionality around expanding partner community sharing, easier searching capabilities and industry focused-content.

Puppet

Puppet Channel Partner Program

Leslie Lorenco, Global Director, Channel Sales

The goal of the Puppet Partner Program is to focus on enabling partners that are technically adept and capable of driving services. It has launched its new program with a technical competency and plans to add additional competencies.

Pure Storage

Pure Storage Partner Program

Wendy Stusrud, VP, Global Partner Sales

Pure Storage’s goals for 2022 include increasing partners’ spend across the entire portfolio of products, introducing technology specializations as an option for partners to participate in, and expanding partner-branded services.

Qlik

Qlik Partner Program

Poornima Ramaswamy, EVP, Global Solutions, Partners

Qlik modernized the partner program to enable lifetime valuedriven customer relationships through its Cloud Services track.

This helps partners make the shift from a focus on indirect perpetual license sales to building recurring revenue streams.

Quantum

Quantum Alliance

James Mundle, Global Channel Chief

Quantum is focused on recruitment of resellers in markets where it is underserved and expanding sales with existing resellers.

Quest Software

Quest Partner Circle Program

Todd Werner, VP, Global Channels

Quest aims to accelerate growth with service providers by investing in enablement, improved operations support and increased incentives. The company also is planning to offer better training and partner self-sufficiency.

Quickpass

Quickpass Partner Program

Jimmy Hatzell, Director, Marketing

Quickpass plans to create a Partner Advisory Board and launch a partner portal.

RapidScale, a Cox Business Company

RapidScale Channel Partner Program

Bob Buchanan, Sr. Director, Sales

RapidScale’s goals for 2022 include driving more qualified partners into its program, improving partner sales skills through webinars and training sessions, and ramping up partner sales of newly launched products and services.

Red Hat

Red Hat Partner Connect

Stefanie Chiras, Ph.D., SVP, Partner Ecosystem Success

In 2022 Red Hat remains committed to creating a unified experience for partners across all functions, industries and verticals. In doing so, Red Hat aims to introduce better partner tools, data resources and reward opportunities.

Pegasystems

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

Broadcom Builds Relationships Through Partner Program Q. What does receiving the 5-Star PPG recognition mean for your partner program?

A. CRN’s 5-Star recognition is a testament to Broadcom Software’s continued com-

mitment to our indirect channel, and our dedication to developing innovative and lucrative programs that drive growth and success with and for our partners. We would like to thank our partners for their ongoing dedication and unique value they provide to Broadcom Software.

Q. What’s new with the Broadcom Partner Program that partners may not be familiar with?

Laura McGregor Falko

A. We recognize that certain partners want to focus on services delivery capabili-

Q. How does Broadcom plan to continue providing great service to partners in the coming months?

A. This spring, we plan to increase our investment and focus of our cybersecurity

solution programs benefiting our small and medium-sized business customers and partners. We are committed to ensuring our partner community is best positioned to meet the growing demand for cybersecurity and to address the most complex cybersecurity challenges—regardless of an organization’s size. In partnership with our Cybersecurity Aggregator Distributors, we will feature enhanced sales tools, a new commercial deal registration program, growth-focused pricing options, improved partner sales incentives and attractive trial programs, all designed to deliver even better customer experiences, powering growth and retention within this important segment of our customer base.

Q. Why should a prospective partner join the Broadcom Partner Program?

A. Our program is designed to build stronger relationships with, and financial success

“

We’ve designed our program benefits to directly align to a partner’s commitment to selling and supporting Broadcom Software solutions while still allowing for flexibility to add or change business models or expand your solution focus across our entire software portfolio— as it makes sense for your unique business and customer needs.

“

ties and business models. Our recently launched Expert Advantage Partner Program enables these partners to invest in consulting and implementation services offerings, technical support and managed services through this new services program path, providing them with an opportunity to commercialize services investments in Broadcom Software solutions alone or in combination with their resell business.

Head, Global Partner Programs & Marketing for Broadcom Software

for, our valued Broadcom Software partners while providing partners with the capabilities to grow their business through simplified pricing, better margins and richer benefits.

We’ve designed our program benefits to directly align to a partner’s commitment to selling and supporting Broadcom Software solutions while still allowing for flexibility to add or change business models or expand your solution focus across our entire software portfolio—as it makes sense for your unique business and customer needs.

Learn more at broadcom.com/advantagepartner

2022

2 0 2 2 PA R T N E R P R O G R A M G U I D E Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

Retrospect

Retrospect Partner Program

Werner Walter, Director, Worldwide Sales

Retrospect’s goal for 2022 is to increase the usage of the partner portal as a self-service option for more partners.

Ribbon

Ribbon Partner Program

David Hogan, VP, Growth Segments

Ribbon plans to focus on top-tier partners for co-marketing and increased self-service for lower-tier partners through its partner portal.

RingCentral

RingCentral Partner Program

Zane Long, SVP, Global Partner Sales

RingCentral’s goal is to put the emphasis on people, setting its sights on continuing to build strong relationships with partners.

This means focusing on the people behind partnerships and working to uphold partners’ reputations in their communities.

Riverbed | Aternity

Riverbed Rise

Lindsey Claypool, Sr. Director, Channel Sales

Riverbed | Aternity aims to motivate partners through rewards for building practices around its offerings. The company also is working to ensure top-tier partners are enabled on its advanced visibility offerings.

Rubrik

Rubrik Velocity Partner Program

Bertrand Yansouni, VP, Worldwide Channel

Rubrik offers partners the opportunity to gain technical, differentiated expertise and capabilities, expand their business, and meet customers’ needs with highly profitable offerings.

Sage Software

Sage Intacct Partner Program

Aziz Benmalek, EVP, Partners, Alliances

Sage Software is continuing to expand its focus on verticalspecific sales and delivery enablement of reseller partners.

Salesforce

Salesforce Partner Program

Tyler Prince, EVP, Alliances, Channels

Salesforce’s 2021 acquisition of Slack created tremendous opportunities for ecosystem partners to help their customers transform workflows. Partners can build advisory services and solutions that deliver the power of Slack and Salesforce.

Salt Security

Salt Security Partner Program

Anton Granic, VP, Worldwide Sales

Salt Security sees APIs as the most significant threat vector for application attacks. In 2022, resellers can leverage the industry knowledgeof Salt Security to keep their customers safe without interruption to existing services.

Samsung Electronics America

Samsung Ascend

Chris Mertens, VP, U.S. Sales Display Division

Samsung is looking to increase registered Ascend Partner Portal partners and users. It has expanded partner reach to include those that focus on specific verticals and product categories by providing access to its top-tier partner program benefits.

Sangoma

Sangoma Partner Program

Joel Poythress, SVP, Strategic, Enterprise Sales

Sangoma is aiming to further streamline partner experiences and grow their business with more dedicated engagement from its teams.

SAP

SAP PartnerEdge

Karl Fahrbach, Chief Partner Officer

SAP enhances and improves its partner program based on partner feedback. In 2022, it will make major changes to its partner competency structure, where it will debut a new architecture in addition to other major program enhancements.

Saviynt

Saviynt Partner Program

Scott Plutko, SVP, Global Partner Organization

Saviynt looks to generate net-new opportunities and offer a best-of-breed identity solution to the practice, both in a traditional model and a managed service.

Scale Computing

Scale Computing Partner Community

Scott Mann, Global Channel Chief

Scale Computing wants to continue to better enable partners, giving them the tools and resources they need to be self-sufficient through the sales cycle and post-installation process.

Schneider Electric

EcoXpert Partner Program

Virginie Milhaud, EcoXpert Program Director

Under the EcoXpert program, Schneider Electric works with solution providers to implement smart building and IoT technologies, including the EcoStruxure IT infrastructure management software and Wiser smart home products.

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

Bitdefender Offers World Class Cybersecurity #BuiltForResilience Seven years in a row now, the annual guide has ranked Bitdefender’s partner program among the strongest and most successful in the channel. Bitdefender’s partner program has grown better each year, with more tools, better communication and more opportunities for partners to increase income.

Q. What’s the biggest market opportunity you and your channel partners will tackle together in 2022?

A. As the pandemic subsides, the business landscape is reshaping. Many organiza-

tions continue to operate with a more dispersed and remote workforce. As a result, demand is strong for solutions that protect diverse environments, whether on premises, cloud or hybrid. Our Partner Advantage Network (PAN) program enables our channel partners to increase their competitive advantage, add lucrative new revenue streams and create unique customer value by delivering the industry’s topranked cybersecurity solutions in the segments that are growing fastest worldwide.

A. Our offering is built to make protection for diverse and complex environments complete and efficient. We take pride in the high-quality service and support we provide partners and in Bitdefender’s innovative, industry-leading technology. This ensures the security and satisfaction of our users, which translates into direct benefits for our partners.

Our PAN partner program rewards depth of expertise, specializations and enables profit predictability, alongside the ability to differentiate from the competition. We offer access to an extensive knowledge base, integrated tools and dedicated operational and business support. Bitdefender delivers real, demonstrable bottom-line value along with clear differentiation for partners that invest in us as their vendor of choice.

Q. What is Bitdefender looking to do in 2022 to enhance its channel program and what is key to success for your channel partners this year?

A. A key goal this year is to offer a refreshed enablement experience based on the

partner lifecycle in conducting business with Bitdefender—starting from the portal registration, building business and advancing to a higher tier. Extra focus will be on the support we offer in this enablement process. We will also deliver an improved portal experience to help ensure ease of doing business. From an operations standpoint, channel partners who fully understand the core benefits of Bitdefender technologies and services to improve their customers’ protection against threats and their cyber resiliency will increase success. We offer partners continuous support and technical trainings, along with marketing and sales materials to help effectively secure more deals.

Learn more about the benefits of Bitdefender partnership:

https://www.bitdefender.com/partners/

Vice President - Demand Generation, eCommerce and Partner Marketing

“

As a cybersecurity market leader, Bitdefender is investing in channel enablement programs to support partner growth while capitalizing on the demand for market leading endpoint security technologies.

“

Q. Why would a channel player want to partner with Bitdefender?

Cristian Corabu

2022

2 0 2 2 PA R T N E R P R O G R A M G U I D E Company

Channel Program

Schneider Electric

mySchneider Kheradmand Sorouch, Global Consultants, Designers Head of Design Firms Channel and Engineers Program

Schneider Electric is committed to enriching its program and making sure it is available in a maximal number of geographies to enable the ecosystem to collaborate as efficiently as possible using the latest digital technologies.

Schneider Electric

mySchneider Contractor Program

Natalie Block, Global Contractor Channel Director

The Contractor program is designed for electrical contractors and installers who work with Schneider Electric’s critical power, cooling and rack technology, including data center software and uninterruptible power supply products.

Schneider Electric (IT Solutions Business Division)

Edge Software & Digital Services Program

Shannon Sbar, VP, Channels, North America

Schneider Electric’s Edge Software & Digital Services program gives partners the foundation to offset expenses needed to develop their practice, elevate the competency of their teams and increase profitability.

Schneider Electric Industries SAS

mySchneider Panel Builder program

Lou Adlerfligel, Global Head, Panel Builder Channel

Schneider Electric Industries SAS is focused on sustainability for partners to help them reduce their carbon footprint. It also aims to improve their digital maturity to become more visible on social media networks.

Seagate

Seagate Partner Program

Laurie Carrion, Sr. Director, Business, Markets

In 2022, Seagate is looking to continue supporting existing partners while growing the program to support partners with cloud and service offerings.

Sectigo

Sectigo SecurePlus Partner Program

Michael Fowler, President, Channels, Partners

Sectigo is focused on formalized recruitment, increased portal usage and deeper engagement with current partners. To that end, it is rolling out a Technical Master Program to train and enable the technical partner community at large.

SecureAuth

SecureAuth Partner Program

Mike Williams, CRO, Channel Chief

SecureAuth’s goals are to continue building its alliance and channel partnerships. It is striving toward being 100 percent channel and to a more robust sales and technical enablement path.

Secureworks

Secureworks Global Partner Program

Ian Bancroft, Chief Sales Officer

Secureworks added 147 new partners by focusing on technology solution providers, alliance and MSSPs. The company also introduced new sales and technical sales certifications.

SecurID, an RSA Business

SecurID Partner Program

Brian Breton, Regional VP, Americas, Channel Sales, Operations

SecurID, an RSA business, has initiated more product-based promotions on high-demand SecurID products to provide partners with more margin on opportunities and debuted a new process for registering deals through distributors.

SecurityScorecard

SecurityScorecard Partner Program

Nicole Stavroff, VP, Worldwide Channels

SecurityScorecard’s focus is on use case selling. It developed new collateral and training for partners to enable them to have new conversations with their customers by persona and use case.

Securonix

Securonix Fuel Partner Program

Chris Ostertag, CRO

Securonix is optimizing its tools to improve the partner experience. The company will continue to recognize and focus on enabling its technical partner community as it is one of the company’s most valuable assets.

Seeburger

Seeburger Partner Program

Sreekamal Challa, SVP, Strategy, Business Development, Partnerships

Seeburger will continue to build out its Agile Partner and Alliance Program for existing and new partners. With Seeburger integration, a combination of its products, services and people, it will help to accelerate business for partners.

Semperis

Semperis Partner Program

Dave Evans, Head of Channels, Alliances

For 2022, the Semperis Partner Program is focused on increasing sales and technical enablement engagements with partners and equipping them to succeed in the directorybased security and threat detection and mitigation space.

SentinelOne

SentinelOne Channel Program

Ken Marks, VP, Worldwide Channel Sales

SentinelOne’s Paladin Program identifies those partner systems engineers that were the most skilled in telling the differentiated story, providing demonstrations and demos and setting up, running and closing proofs of concept.

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Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

Service Express

Channel Sales

Jeff Batts, Sr. Director, Channel Sales

Service Express’ goal is to continue improving its program.

The focus will be on its partner collaborative marketing plan, revenue and small partner attrition. Its MDF will go toward these initiatives.

Sharp Electronics

Sharp Alliance Plus

John Sheehan, SVP, Channel Sales

In 2022, Sharp would like to add more qualified partners to its program, launch and revamp existing channel programs, and increase the number of professional services going through partners.

Sherweb

Sherweb Partner Program

Jim O’Driscoll, VP, Sales

Sherweb’s Partner University is designed to teach partners how to offer real solutions to customers instead of just SKUs. It includes an online video library where participants can follow training at their own pace and get access to demos.

Siemens Digital Industries Software

Siemens Digital Jeff Zobrist, VP, Global Partner Industries Software Network, Go-To-Market Global Partner Program

Skout Cybersecurity

Skout Partner Program

Mike Hanauer, VP, Sales, Marketing, MSP XDR

Skout intends to launch new certifications and partner levels and improve partners’ sales skills and profitability.

SnapLogic

SnapLogic Partner Connect Program

Jason Wakeam, VP, Channels

SnapLogic launched an enhanced program with simplified tiers and increased benefits, partner marketing kits for demand generation, increased free training, and free or discounted certifications.

Software AG

Software AG PartnerConnect Program

Jason Johns, SVP, Global Alliances, Channels

Software AG aims to attract premier partners, implement an MSP program and offer a master level for interested implementation partners to improve global delivery coverage.

Somansa

Somansa Partner Program

Don Lee, Director, Business Development

Somansa plans to improve and enhance the Somansa Partner Program’s partner portal content and user experience such as training videos in sales, marketing and technical areas.

SonicWall

SonicWall SecureFirst Partner Program

HoJin Kim, VP, Worldwide Channels, North America Sales

SonicWall cares most about its partners’ success. It aims to exceed their level of expectation, provide them with a streamlined experience from start to finish, and help contribute to their 2022 bottom line.

Sophos

Sophos Partner Program

Kendra Krause, SVP, Global Channels, Sales Operations

Sophos will continue to invest in services-led partnerships, including MSPs and cloud security providers, and drive awareness and adoption of its managed threat detection and response as well as rapid response services.

Spectrum

Spectrum Partner Program

Michelle Kadlacek, VP, Enterprise Partner Program

The goals for the Spectrum Partner Program are simple: to continue automation efforts, further enhance the partner experience and mutually grow business. It will continue enhancing Salesforce communities and launch new APIs.

Splunk

Splunk Partnerverse Program

Bill Hustad, VP, Alliances, Channel Ecosystems

Splunk’s goals for this year are to migrate partners to cloud solutions and focus on a small number of elite partners.

Starburst

Starburst Orbit

Toni Adams, VP, Partners, Alliances

Starburst’s main goals for 2022 include promoting partner solutions via the marketplace and improving partner sales and technical skills. It also is focused on increasing company revenue through the channel.

StorMagic

StorMagic Channel Program

Brian Grainger, President, CRO

StorMagic will look to continue the growth of its channel program into new markets such as video surveillance and consolidate its presence in key territories. It will facilitate new opportunities for partners through new product developments.

Siemens aims to continue transitioning its business models and partnerships to SaaS by focusing on sell, service and build business outcomes, including shifting from project-based wins to adoption and long-term relationships.

APRIL 2022

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2 0 2 2 PA R T N E R P R O G R A M G U I D E Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

SupportLogic

Partner Experience Plus

Dave Feliu, Director, Global Channels, Alliances

SupportLogic’s goals include new partner adoption and having first-year channel revenue account for 20 percent of overall company revenue. The program is just launching and the channel revenue contribution will scale in years two and three.

SUSE

SUSE One Partner Program

Rachel Cassidy, SVP, Global Channels, Alliance

SUSE will continue to expand and refine the key benefits and requirements for each partner specialization and bring new functionality to the partner portal to simplify and centralize more partner interactions.

Swimlane

Medley Partner Program

Mike Kay, SVP, Business Development

In 2022, Swimlane is focusing its efforts building off the groundwork laid with the launch of the new program in 2021 and continuing to stimulate growth in channels through the acceleration of solutions introduced to channel partners.

Synopsys

Synopsys Partner Program

Tom Herrmann, VP, Global Channels, Alliances

Synopsys will continue to enhance its partner program with an ongoing focus on ease of doing business, profitability and predictability based on an overall partner-first mentality across the organization.

Syspro

PartnerUp

Michael Bennett, Global Channel Executive

Syspro’s aim for 2022 is to initiate a multicountry partner program and improved commissions, rebates and incentives.

It also plans to encourage increased partner contribution to the business.

Tanium

Tanium Partner Advantage

Todd Palmer, SVP, Global Partner Sales

Tanium is continuing to enrich its program with more partner gives and gets but still under the strategy of no programmatic tiers or gates. Most partners are supporting their customers across the life cycle so post-sales service delivery is a priority.

Tehama

Tehama Partner Program

Mick Miralis, VP, Worldwide Channels

Tehama plans to develop a highly productive ecosystem of partners globally in North America, EMEA, Latin America and Asia-Pacific. It aims to ensure they have an optimal partner experience through support, enablement and go-to-market.

TeleVoIPs

TeleVoIPs Partner Program

Stephen Cox, Chief Sales Officer

TeleVoips’ goal is to add 12 new referral partners.

Telos

Telos CyberProtect Partner Program

Lisa Conway, VP, Sales Operations, Strategic Alliances

Telos is asking partners to increase their digital marketing footprint with Telos through its Through-Channel Marketing Automation offering on its portal so that they can effectively generate leads to drive a recurring revenue stream.

Tenable

Tenable Assure Partner Program

Jeff Brooks, VP, Global Channels, Business Development

Tenable aims to increase the amount of professional services going through its partners and encourage them to sell a broader part of the company’s portfolio.

Teridion

Teridion Partner Program

Ryan Gibbons, Head of Channel, Sales, Americas

Teridion has two goals. First is expanded partner adoption and repeatability within its target MSPs, CSPs and systems integrators. Second is to exit 2022 with 35 tier-one and tiertwo MSPs, CSPs and systems integrators.

ThreatLocker

ThreatLocker Partner Program

Danny Jenkins, CEO

ThreatLocker aims to grow its partner base and introduce new partner tiers and certifications. It will launch new training programs that enable partners to utilize its mobile application to deploy ThreatLocker in their own environments.

ThreatQuotient

Threat Alliance Program

Haig Colter, Director, Alliances

ThreatQuotient is rolling out a partner relationship management tool this year.

Delinea, formerly ThycoticCentrify

Delinea Partner Program

Delinea is ramping up partner communications and outreach in 2022. This will include adding a partner conference in Bob Gagnon, VP, Channel Sales addition to redrafting a new training and certification curriculum.

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

HYCU Global Partner PACE Program Drives Engagement To New Levels

R

Q. What drove HYCU to update its partner program and launch the Global Partner PACE Program in late 2021?

A. Our channel-centric model depends on a partner community that is enabled,

empowered and encouraged. The Global Partner PACE Program is a continuation and evolution of what has already been established. At HYCU, we are always looking for ways to improve the programs we’ve created and to continue to meet the needs of what are partners are asking us for and need from us.

Q. What is driving interest in the PACE Program with partners?

A. We’re seeing more interest across our partner ecosystem, from our traditional partner and reseller channels to MSPs, MSSPs and CSPs. The definition of expected margins has seen our registrations go through the roof over the past three months.

Also, our registration guarantee has accelerated partner interest.

A. More of HYCU’s partners are building out security practices, especially MSPs and

MSSPs, and having the capability to deliver a ransomware assessment based on the R-Score ransomware recovery readiness and layering services on top of what they currently offer is a huge benefit and opens new revenue streams. We’re also seeing a lot more interest from CSPs working on modernization initiatives and protecting mission-critical workloads like SAP HANA. Our backing certification for SAP HANA is just one aspect that differentiates us strongly from other offerings available to partners.

Q. What does it mean to HYCU to be a 5-Star Partner Program Guide winner?

A. HYCU’s success is dependent on our partners’ success. We are extremely proud of

this recognition. It’s based on our efforts to offer solutions that our partners can use to deliver leading-edge multi-cloud data protection, migration and recovery to their customers. We offer a compelling ransomware recovery and resiliency-as-a-service solution that is seeing increasing interest.

For more information go to:

https://resources.hycu.com/PACE

“

Director, Channel Development, North America

HYCU’s success is dependent on our partner’s success. We are extremely proud of this recognition. It’s based on our efforts to offer solutions that our partners can use to deliver leading-edge multi-cloud data protection, migration and recovery to their customers.

“

Q. What is happening in the industry where you are seeing new interest from partners?

Jose Rangel

2022

2 0 2 2 PA R T N E R P R O G R A M G U I D E Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

Tibco Software

Tibco Partner Program

Tony Beller, SVP, Worldwide Partners, OEM Sales

Tibco plans to align partner program incentives to field sales incentives. The company also aims to amplify thought leadership to build brand awareness.

Tintri by DDN

Tintri Partner Program

Heather Allen, Channel Sales Manager

Tintri provides partners with support to build vertical market and industry specialization capabilities as well as presales assessment or consulting professional services skills.

TP-Link

TP-Link Partner Program

Victor Liu, Director, B2B Product, Channel Strategy

The four-tier TP-Link Partner Program offers a full line of benefits including direct incentives, deal registration, members-only promotions and access to sales tools. Now available is the TP-Link Training and Certification Program.

TrackVia

TrackVia Partner Program

Roger Moffat, Director, Global Channels, Alliances

TrackVia aims to increase partner-led sales and partner certifications and add functionality to the partner portal. Lead generation and reaching new international markets with local partners are on the docket as well.

Trilio

Trilio 360 Partner Program

Sarah Goodchild, Sr. Director, Worldwide Partner Sales

Trilio plans to rebrand and launch program enhancements to build awareness, recruit more partners and formalize program elements. It also plans to expand into new partner types and business models.

Tripp Lite, Part of Eaton

Tripp Lite Partner Program & Premier Partner Program

Steve Loeb, Commercial Integration Leader, Americas

Power and data center infrastructure provider Tripp Lite was acquired by Eaton in March 2021. The company is focused on helping partners succeed.

Trustifi

Trustifi Channel Partner Program

Zack Schwartz, VP, Channels, Business Development

Trustifi is looking to increase its channel partner base and grow existing active MSP partners’ business through engagement and enhanced product features.

Tufin

Tufin Channel Partner Program

Gene Ymiolek, Director, Channel, Americas

Tufin works with distributors, resellers and systems integrators, offering benefits designed to promote and enhance partners’ skills, facilitate business growth and maximize profitability.

Twilio

Twilio Build Consulting Partner Program

Alden Hultgren, VP, Consulting, Reseller Partners

Twilio will invest in partner solution architects and partner sales managers for channel alignment with direct sales. It also plans to establish a partner marketing team offering MDF and new digital marketing assets.

Unitrends, a Kaseya Company

Unitrends Partner Program

Adam Larrabee, VP, New Sales, Channel Management

Unitrends has a few core goals: expanding the global Unitrends Partner Program, increasing the number of actively marketing partners, launching a new certification program and boosting the number of net-new transacting partners.

Unitrends, a Kaseya Company

Unitrends Xtra Program

Adam Larrabee, VP, New Sales, Channel Management

Unitrends’ primary goal is to more than double the number of actively transacting partners under the program. It also aims to get a significant percentage selling solutions from at least three product families.

Untangle

Untangle Partner Program

Brandi Fretwell, Channel Sales Manager

Untangle plans to continue investing in the channel program in hopes of continuing to attract larger MSPs in all regions.

The goal is to continue building sales, product and marketing support to help them achieve their financial goals as well.

Vectra AI

Vectra Worldwide Partner Program

Randy Schirman, Channel Chief, VP, Partner Sales

Vectra AI aims to continue to expand the growth of the entire partner ecosystem, while also including Alliances for a full cosell solution. The program enables all partners to deliver various services and products to address current attack vectors.

Veeam Software

Veeam ProPartner Program for Veeam Value-Added Resellers

Kevin Rooney, VP, Americas Partner Sales

Resellers continue to expand cloud offerings and customers will continue requesting and consuming subscriptionbased models. The key to Veeam’s success in 2022 will be on ensuring programs are able to support this behavior.

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APRIL 2022

Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

Veritas Technologies

Veritas Partner Force

Mike Walkey, SVP, Global Channels, Alliances

Ransomware attacks have skyrocketed and have deeply impacted the channel. Veritas partners will be tasked with helping their customers address this challenge by protecting their data and making their infrastructure more resilient.

Verizon

Verizon Partner Program

Wendy Taccetta, SVP, Nationwide Small Business, Channel Chief

Verizon’s new partner portal simplifies how partners engage with the company. Following the portal launch, there have been 17 additional capabilities, increased automation and enhancements to improve the partner experience.

Versa Networks

Versa Ace Partner Program

Hemen Mehta, VP, North American Channels

Versa Networks plans tighter alignment with strategic alliances and channels. It also aims to improve sales tools that will enable partners to manage and grow their business.

Versapay

VersaPartner Program

Dave Vierregg, SVP, Channel Sales

Versapay will continue to round out program benefits with more self-service and custom marketing resources to help partners bring AR automation and Versapay to their customers.

It also is focusing on new training and enablement.

Vertiv

Vertiv Partner Program

Peter Klanian, VP, Americas Channel

Vertiv’s key objective is to invest with partners toward growth areas, in particular opportunities to promote key categories, new products and managed services to mutual customers.

Viavi Solutions

Velocity Partner Program

Barry Johnson, VP, Global Channels

Viavi is looking to add a Solutions Integrator category to its partner program to align with changes the company is seeing with its partners’ evolutions.

ViewSonic

ViewSonic Partner Program [formerly Finch Club]

Ryan Strayer, Sr. Director, Sales, B2B Channel Chief

ViewSonic expanded its partner program to offer a new, easyto-use portal, increased training and additional resources and support to ensure that partners have the tools and incentives to grow their business.

Virtana

Virtana Partner Select

Steve Hershkowitz, CRO

Virtana aims to increase the overall percentage of company revenue that comes through the channel and migrate partners to cloud solutions.

VMware

VMware Partner Connect

Sandy Hogan, SVP, Worldwide Commercial, Partner Organization

VMware has enhanced its Customer Lifecycle Incentives portfolio to facilitate end-to-end digital transformation and is making VMware Cloud Universal available through partners.

Vonage

Vonage Channel Partner Program

Jim Regan, Channel Chief

Vonage aims to increase the overall percentage of company revenue that comes through the channel, improve partner profitability and ramp up partner sales of a newly launched product and service.

Wasabi Technologies

Wasabi Partner Network

Marty Falaro, EVP, COO

Wasabi will continue to boost the program with free resources, helping partners launch their offers, and proposal-based MDF funds for driving more demand and education. A focus on partner sales skills brings qualified partners.

WatchGuard Technologies

WatchGuardONE

Michelle Welch, SVP, Marketing

WatchGuard’s top program goals for 2022 are to add more qualified partners, increase the amount of recurring revenue going through partners, and ramp up partner sales of newly launched products and services.

Xerox

Xerox Global Partner Program

Joanne Collins Smee, EVP, Chief Commercial, SMB, Channels Officer

Xerox continued to streamline its program to ensure it offered partners consistency in incentives and tiering. The company also relaunched its Authorized Service Provider program to support partners in capturing more wallet share.

Xilica

Xilica One

James Knight, COO

Xilica One will continue to expand in 2022 with more flexible digital tools and resources, marketing content syndication and more opportunities to personalize assets for the specific needs of the partner community.

APRIL 2022

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2 0 2 2 PA R T N E R P R O G R A M G U I D E Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2022 Partner Program Goals And Insight

zPartner Program

Kerry Telling, VP, EMEA Sales

Zadara is looking to help partners continue to grow and leverage co-op funds. In 2021 the company on-boarded partners at a rate of 10 per quarter and has enhanced the program based on partner feedback.

Zebra Technologies

Zebra PartnerConnect

Jeff Barteld, Sr. Director, Channel Strategy, PartnerConnect, Partner Enablement

Zebra plans to enable a SaaS program and stand up a new channel analytics team focused on increased engagement with the channel community. The company also aims to increase the number of qualified partners in its specialized programs.

Zenoss

Zenoss Partner Network

Pritesh Upadhyay, CRO

Zenoss will be focused on partner recruitment and enablement as well as increasing channel sales.

Zerto, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company

Zerto Alliance Partner Program

Eric Barnhart, Sr. Director, Cloud, Channel Sales

Zerto’s goal is to encourage partners to increase their marketing engagement, resulting in all partners having multitouch activities that drive prospects through the marketing funnel.

Zimperium

Zimperium Partner Program

Tim Wheatley, Global Channels, Alliances Chief

Zimperium is doubling its channel sales team to support OEM and reseller partners. It will be rolling out competency certifications for mobile device and DevSecOps specializations for sellers and technical resources.

Zoom Video Communications

Zoom Up Partner Program

Laura Padilla, Head of Global Partner, Platform Sales, BD

The company plans to introduce new levels for the Zoom Up Partner Program, which will include Performance Partners, Sales Partners and Enrolled Partners. In addition, it aims to increase the amount of services opportunities going through partners.

Zscaler

Summit Partner Program

Todd Meister, SVP, Global Channels

Zscaler will continue to simplify the program for maximum partner effectiveness and velocity.

Zyxel Networks

Zyxel Authorized Partner Program

Gordon Yang, CEO

Zyxel plans to launch its new partner portal and improve ondemand online training.

Zadara

2022 CRN

PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

GitLab’s Forward-Thinking Partner Program Garners 5-Star Recognition Q. What is GitLab?

A. GitLab is The DevOps Platform that empowers organizations to maximize the overall return on software development by delivering software faster and efficiently, while strengthening security and compliance. With GitLab, every team in an organization can collaboratively plan, build, secure and deploy software to drive business outcomes faster with complete transparency, consistency and traceability.

Q. What makes the GitLab partner program unique?

A. GitLab partners with technology leaders and trusted advisors to transform one

Q. How has GitLab changed in the last year?

A. At GitLab, we take a forward-thinking approach in all areas of our business. As DevOps evolved, we wanted to ensure that our partner program evolved as well.

We are always striving for the right blend of tools, services and strategies to help our partners succeed, and we’re continually iterating based on each partner’s feedback.

But it all starts with DevOps. Organizations are moving from monolithic architectures to microservices architectures. By using microservices, teams can work independently and move faster. As DevOps matures, organizations need more and more DevOps tools per project. More projects and more tools per project led to an exponential increase in the number of project-tool integrations. This necessitates a change in the way organizations adopt DevOps tools. This forward-thinking approach resonated with our partners. By empowering all teams—software, operations, IT, security and business—to collaboratively plan, build, secure and deploy software across an endto-end unified system, GitLab represents a fundamental step change in realizing the full potential of DevOps.

Michelle Hodges

“

Vice President of Global Channels

GitLab is continually looking to build strong partnerships with forward-thinking organizations across the globe. We work with our partners, relying on both our industry knowledge and expertise and theirs to ensure we bring the customer high-value services and solutions.

“

platform into countless solutions. Through our commitment to open collaboration, we’ve created a DevOps ecosystem with integrations and services that support the entire software lifecycle. We’ve simplified GitLab deployments by partnering with leading cloud providers to deliver better software faster. Our cloud native integrations are a direct line to the environments developers trust most.

Q. How has GitLab’s Channel Program changed based on the evolution of DevOps?

A. The GitLab Channel Services program is designed to help new or existing partners

design service portfolios around the DevOps Lifecycle in correlation to GitLab products. The program helps partners evaluate business opportunities and create a technical enablement framework to use as they build their GitLab-related service practices.

As GitLab and our partners look ahead to software-led organizations becoming even more distributed and agile, we believe every company will need a DevOps Platform to modernize software development and delivery.

Learn more about DevOps and the GitLab partner program.

2022

INTERNET OF THINGS 50

Connecting The IoT Dots CRN’s Internet of Things 50 highlights the 50 coolest companies across connectivity, hardware, industrial IoT, security and software.

By CRN Staff

G

rowth in the global Internet of Things technology market is being fueled by a number of factors, including increasingly decentralized data centers and dispersed cloud networks, widespread adoption of 5G communications, and the rapidly growing number of smart sensors and devices connected to wireless networks.

With all of the opportunity surrounding IoT, where is a solution provider to begin? To that end, CRN presents the 50 coolest IoT companies of the year. These companies connect the dots across connectivity, hardware, industrial IoT, security and software.

IoT requires reliable connectivity, sometimes in the strangest of places, like far-flung rugged outdoor areas. Many service providers and startups today are coming to the market with low-power and low-cost connection options for devices and sensors. Private LTE and 5G cellular options have also become popular connectivity options for enterprise IoT environments.

Hardware, meanwhile, forms the base on which IoT is built. From the tiny edge and mobile sensors collecting data to the servers and storage devices on which collected data is centralized and analyzed to the massive data centers in which much of this work is done,

50

every part of the IoT process requires a hardware component.

Going forward, as more and more of the IoT functionality gets done on the edge where data can be collected, stored and analyzed before being sent to a centralized location for further processing, hardware will play an even more important role.

When it comes to the industrial IoT market, the need for greater efficiency and control in industrial operations, such as production processes and robotics, continues to grow.

By providing industrial companies with a common way to access, manage and visualize IoT data, as well as build and deploy IoT applications, industrial IoT platforms help manufacturing companies achieve their biggest goals.

As for IoT security, all of today’s new devices need the assurance of top-tier security to win over new customers.

And finally, IoT software includes IoT applications for specific tasks such as managing building HVAC systems, linking industrial systems in a manufacturing plant or collecting data from sensors in a farmer’s field. The IoT software category also includes development tools for building IoT applications, software for deploying and managing IoT applications and networks.

Here are CRN’s 2022 coolest Internet of Things 50 companies.

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FEBRUARY 2022

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10 Coolest IoT

CONNECTIVITY COMPANIES Celona

Kajeet

Channel-friendly startup Celona is giving enterprises a softwarebased approach to building their own private LTE and 5G cellular networks for IoT applications and beyond. The Cupertino, Calif.based company has strategic partnerships with Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, as well as Cradlepoint and Verizon.

Wireless network operator Kajeet is targeting enterprises and the education space with its Sentinel managed IoT platform that lets administrators control devices and sensors in the field.

The McLean, Va.-based company works with channel partners, service providers and device manufacturers.

Comcast

Senet

Comcast is connecting enterprises to low-power, wide-area networks for IoT deployments with its MachineQ suite of hardware and software offerings that the Philadelphia-based cable giant launched in 2016. These offerings include gateways, sensors and the MQcentral device management software platform.

Portsmouth, N.H.-based Senet specializes in cloud-based managed network services for application providers, network operators, systems integrators and solution providers. The company has struck up partnerships with AT&T, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure for its cloud connectivity software and low-power wide-area network connectivity.

RAJEEV SHAH, FOUNDER, CEO

BRIAN ROBERTS, CEO

Digi International RON KONEZNY, CEO

Digi International, a provider of machine-to-machine connectivity services, offers IoT products that support industries from retail and banking to medical, industrial and transportation.

The Minnetonka, Minn.-based company has a channel program for reseller partners and also partners with hardware and software providers.

Helium

DANIEL J.W. NEAL, CEO

BRUCE CHATTERLEY, PRESIDENT, CEO

Sierra Wireless

KENT THEXTON, PRESIDENT, CEO Richmond, British Columbia-based Sierra Wireless provides modems, modules and connectivity services for SMB IoT deployments. The company’s offerings include modules for lowpower wide-area networks, cellular networks, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and it also sells devices for specific applications like fleet tracking and remote monitoring.

AMIR HALEEM, CEO

Telit

Helium’s network is a consumer-deployed, decentralized wireless infrastructure that supports open-source and low-cost wireless connectivity ecosystems. The San Francisco-based company is crowdsourcing IoT connectivity with its LongFi wireless network that promises 200 times the range of Wi-Fi at 1/1,000th of the cost of a cellular modem.

London-based Telit calls itself an “enabler” of IoT. Telit offers IoT connectivity plans, as well as software and platforms that can power end-to-end IoT deployments. The company’s offerings can be bundled as an integrated solution to reduce time to market and cost or as a stand-alone product.

PAOLO DAL PINO, CEO

Hologram

Verizon Communications

Hologram, a provider of cellular connectivity for IoT use cases, offers a global platform that lets IT administrators connect, manage and monitor their IoT deployments. The Chicago-based company said that it has thousands of business customers across six continents.

Service provider giant Verizon comes to the market with its cellular solutions to power IoT deployments, including its Narrowband IoT Network, a lower-cost offering for enterprises with IoT devices that only require low power and throughput.

The company also has a partnership with Microsoft Azure to help developers more quickly create IoT solutions.

BEN FORGAN, CEO

HANS VESTBERG, CHAIRMAN, CEO

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INTERNET OF THINGS 50 10 Coolest IoT

HARDWARE COMPANIES Advantech

Intel

Taiwan-based Advantech is investing in expanding its core competencies, co-creation model and an industry-focused application approach for its brand of industrial IoT offerings. Major announcements over the past year include an Nvidia-certified computer for AI at the edge for health care and a rugged, waterproof edge intelligence gateway for harsh environments.

Intel’s microprocessors power many of the systems and devices within today’s IoT networks. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company’s 12th-generation Intel Core processors and the Intel Xeon D-1700 and D-2700 processors are targeted at IoT applications.

Intel IoT RFP Ready Kits, meanwhile, are integrated, use-casefocused, commercial-grade technology bundles for building IoT solutions for key industry verticals.

KC LIU, CHAIRMAN

Cisco Systems

CHUCK ROBBINS, CHAIR, CEO Cisco has been targeting the industrial IoT space with its 2020 acquisition of Fluidmesh Networks, which improved its ability to reach critical, on-the-move IoT applications. The San Jose, Calif.-based networking giant is helping enterprises connect and monitor their IoT endpoints, while automating operations and harnessing data to make more intelligent business decisions.

Dell Technologies

MICHAEL DELL, FOUNDER, CHAIRMAN, CEO Dell Technologies offers a slew of hardware to enable IoT including edge gateways, edge-specific servers and hyperconverged infrastructure. Round Rock, Texas-based Dell Technologies’ IoT Solution for Safety and Security architecture enables customers to see data from any number of data streams as well as plan and act in ways to better secure organizations.

Eurotech

PAUL CHAWLA, CEO Italy-based Eurotech designs, develops and supplies edge computers and end-to-end IoT solutions that include hardware, software and services to systems integrators and enterprises. Its Everyware Cloud industrial IoT platform provides the components and software for IoT, edge gateways to monitor assets, and high-performance edge computers for applications such as AI.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise ANTONIO NERI, PRESIDENT, CEO

Spring, Texas-based HPE offers a range of infrastructure, application and security IoT offerings for connecting new and existing devices and protecting IoT data and devices. HPE’s GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform is a key element of the company’s IoT offerings, as are the company’s Edgeline converged edge systems that can acquire, analyze and act upon edge data.

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PAT GELSINGER, CEO

Lantronix

PAUL PICKLE, PRESIDENT, CEO Irvine, Calif.-based Lantronix serves the global IoT industry with SaaS, connectivity services, engineering services, intelligent hardware and turnkey systems to address business’ requirements for integrated software and application development, SaaS-based management, intelligent edge computing, device connectivity (wired, Wi-Fi and cellular) and various sensors and trackers.

Lenovo

YANG YUANQING, CHAIRMAN, CEO Hong Kong-based PC giant Lenovo introduced its Commerical IoT group at the end of 2019 and has launched offerings for smart buildings and smart retail to help customers simplify business with IoT services. Lenovo looks for IoT partners around the world with solutions in real estate, retail manufacturing, health care, education and transportation.

Nvidia

JENSEN HUANG, CEO Nvidia’s Jetson line of products, including the Jetson Nano single-board computer and its related developer kit, are among the chip company’s key offerings in the IoT arena. The Jetson Nano is designed for embedded applications, robotics, edge devices and artificial intelligence IoT systems. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia also offers the JetPack SDK for building AI software, including for edge and IoT devices.

Qualcomm

CRISTIANO AMON, CEO San Diego-based Qualcomm aims to help customers commercialize their products faster and more cost-effectively using optimized platforms in the areas of smart bodies, smart homes and smart cities.

The company offers its Snapdragon processors, cognitive computing, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LTE modems and more to deliver expanded capabilities for current and future IoT end products.

10 Coolest

INDUSTRIAL IoT COMPANIES Cognite

Samsara

Norway-based Cognite continues to land new partnerships to expand use of its Data Fusion industrial data operations technology. New partnerships include a collaboration with energy company Equinor and engineering firm Arion. The company also secured an investment from energy company Saudi Aramco and released new Cognite Data Fusion capabilities around geospatial data, data ingestion and data profiling.

Samsara’s Connected Operations Cloud and related products allow businesses with physical operations, including transportation, manufacturing, construction and utility companies, to harness IoT data to develop business insight and improve operational performance.

The IoT system performs data ingestion, aggregation and enrichment operations to power the software’s artificial intelligence and machine learning, workflow and analytics, and privacy and security capabilities, along with providing alerts and developer APIs.

JOHN MARKUS LERVIK, CEO

Hitachi Vantara

GAJEN KANDIAH, CEO Santa Clara, Calif.-based Hitachi Vantara’s Lumada platform is an industrial IoT leader providing manufacturing insight, field service management, asset performance management, enterprise asset management, image-based inspections, industrial data operations and video insight. Lumada works with Hitachi Vantara’s storage and its Pentaho analytics platform for a more complete offering.

Ivanti

JEFF ABBOTT, CEO Ivanti in October 2021 promoted Abbott to the CEO post, a vote of confidence in how he has helped more than double the South Jordan, Utah-based company’s revenue to more than $1 billion.

Ivanti, known in part for its Neurons automation platform that provides intelligence on IoT endpoints, also recently bought an industrial IoT platform from WIIO Group, a sign of things to come.

Johnson Controls GEORGE OLIVER, CEO

Johnson Controls provides fire, security and HVAC automation and control equipment. Customers use the Cork, Ireland-based company’s OpenBlue suite—including remote diagnostics, predictive maintenance and compliance monitoring—enabled by IoT and artificial intelligence technologies, to build and operate smart buildings and leverage data to discover insight and find efficiencies.

PTC

SANJIT BISWAS, CO-FOUNDER, CEO

Schneider Electric

JEAN-PASCAL TRICOIRE, CEO France-based power management superstar Schneider Electric offers EcoStruxure, its IoT-enabled, plug-and-play platform for buildings, data centers, homes and industries. The EcoStruxure Platform connects everything from the shop floor to the top floor, collecting critical data from sensors to the cloud, followed by analyzing data to discover meaningful insight.

Seeq

LISA GRAHAM, CEO Seattle-based Seeq offers IoT services including new analytics and insight from sensors on wireless networks, software enabling employees to monitor remote operations and assets, predictive analytics with integrated machine learning, vendor-supplied services and analytics on deployed assets, and the ability to extend visibility to supply chain and distribution networks.

Siemens

ROLAND BUSCH, PRESIDENT, CEO Siemens’ MindSphere is an industrial IoT-as-a-Service offering that connects assets including products, manufacturing sites, systems and machines to a central location to collect, analyze, visualize and act on collected data. The Munich, Germany-based company’s software performs analytics at the edge and in the cloud using near-real-time data.

JIM HEPPELMANN, CEO

Software AG

PTC provides digital transformation offerings that “unlock the value” of industrial IoT by connecting machines, people and processes. The Boston-based company’s technology lineup includes ThingWorx, an industrial IoT platform, and Digital Performance Management, a closed-loop, continuous improvement solution that turns IoT data into actionable insight, provides visibility into operation issues and measures the progress of digital transformation initiatives.

Software AG’s IoT platform connects smart devices, manages them from a single self-service IoT console, analyzes their data in real time, integrates core applications to take advantage of that data and adds other applications to build complete offerings. The Darmstadt, Germany-based company’s Cumulocity IoT edge platform also provides low-code/no-code edge management.

SANJAY BRAHMAWAR, CEO

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INTERNET OF THINGS 50 10 Coolest IoT

SECURITY COMPANIES Armis

Karamba Security

Armis in September partnered with Gigamon to ensure that managed, unmanaged and IoT devices are secured across cloud environments as enterprise threats proliferate. Two months later, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company closed a $300 million funding round on a $3.4 billion valuation to accelerate platform development, fund go-to-market initiatives and support future acquisitions.

Karamba Security partnered with Samsung SDS in June to extend the scope of Samsung’s cybersecurity offerings to include protection of IoT devices against cyberattacks throughout the device life cycle. The Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based company partnered with Winbond in December to give customers end-toend runtime integrity protection for critical applications such as over-the-air updates.

Claroty

Sequitur Labs

Claroty in December purchased security startup Medigate and closed a $400 million funding round to broaden its vertical and geographic reach. The Medigate deal will allow New York-based Claroty to expand its capabilities beyond the industrial and manufacturing spaces and offer protection to hospitals and life sciences firms covering industrial systems and medical devices.

Sequitur Labs’ EmPower service debuted in June to securely monitor, manage and update IoT devices to address technical, IP, supply chain and business challenges faced by developers and manufacturers. The Fall City, Wash.-based company partnered with Variscite in September to help customers develop and release secure IoT products quickly and at low risk.

DigiCert

SAM Seamless Network

Lehi, Utah-based DigiCert in January acquired Mocana to provide manufacturers and operators with a comprehensive platform for managing security across the full IoT device life cycle. The deal provides customers with a means to manage device identity, secure connections, prevent device tampering, and update firmware and settings remotely and securely once in the field.

SAM in June partnered with Monogoto to deliver a secured virtualized 5G mobile connectivity platform that addresses the security concerns and opportunities the 5G transition has raised.

The Tel Aviv, Israel-based company in February closed a $20 million Series B funding round led by Ericsson Ventures to expand its security to cover 5G-connected devices across networks.

Finite State

Shield-IoT

Finite State in November released an automated risk scoring capability for IoT to categorize a device’s security profile and provide tangible evidence of a security program’s effectiveness. The Columbus, Ohio-based company in December released a search function that allows users to gain full visibility into their embedded devices and identify whether a known vulnerability is present.

Herzilya, Israel-based Shield-IoT in November closed a $7.4 million Series A funding round to address the escalating proliferation of IoT cyberthreats to devices, data, critical services and infrastructure.

With Shield-IoT, service providers and IoT brands can monitor and secure their IoT and Industrial IoT networks, reduce operational costs and generate new revenue streams with value-added services.

Forescout

Viakoo

Forescout in February purchased early stage health-care security vendor CyberMDX in a push to become the global leader in safeguarding Internet of Medical Things devices. The deal provides Forescout with comprehensive visibility into medical devices far more quickly than if the San Jose, Calif.-based company attempted to build the capability on its own.

The Viakoo Action Platform debuted in October to deliver remediation and repatriation of IoT devices, enabling them to join or rejoin as a full citizen with an audit trail for governance and compliance.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company’s platform automatically discovers, monitors and updates device firmware, passwords and network certificates for unlimited devices across an enterprise.

YEVGENY DIBROV, CO-FOUNDER, CEO

YANIV VARDI, CEO

JOHN MERRILL, CEO

MATT WYCKHOUSE, FOUNDER, CEO

WAEL MOHAMED, CEO

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AMI DOTAN, CO-FOUNDER, CEO

PHILIP ATTFIELD, FOUNDER, CEO

SIVAN RAUSCHER, CO-FOUNDER, CEO

UDI SOLOMON, C0-FOUNDER, CEO

BUD BROOMHEAD, FOUNDER, CEO

10 Coolest IoT

SOFTWARE COMPANIES Amazon Web Services

JFrog

Less than a year into Adam Selipsky’s role as CEO of Amazon Web Services, the Seattle-based cloud giant has launched some eye-catching products in the IoT space. From the AWS IoT Rapid Adoption Assistance Initiative to AWS IoT TwinMaker, not to mention efforts to expand 5G, AWS continues to show how a cloud giant dominates the IoT space.

JFrog in July bought Vdoo for $300 million to provide total security from the development environment all the way to the edge, IoT and devices. The joint JFrog-Vdoo offering is delivering advanced security for developers and security engineers, with a particular focus on securing the full software life cycle through DevSecOps.

Ayla Networks

Microsoft

San Francisco-based Ayla Networks’ IoT Platform provides OEMs, retailers and device developers an end-to-end smart home IoT platform, including its 5-Star App, managed cloud service and enddevice hardware and software. Ayla offers the latest technology trends such as Wi-Fi 6 and the open-source interoprability system Matter as well as support for Alexa, Siri and Google Play.

Microsoft’s investments in the IoT space include the acquisition of security company ReFirm Labs, partnerships with Verizon, AT&T and others around 5G, and new capabilities in its Azure cloud. The company is a top player in cloud and CEO Nadella has made it clear he intends to command the IoT space as well.

Buildings IoT

JOHN BURTON, CO-FOUNDER, CEO

ADAM SELIPSKY, CEO

JONATHAN COBB, CEO

BRIAN TURNER, CEO Buildings IoT offers software and services for “smart building” automation management, including the company’s flagship onPoint platform that provides command and control for commercial building systems including HVAC, lighting and employee access, and continuously monitors sensor data from utility meters. Buildings IoT also develops IoT Jetstream, an iPaaS system for integrating data flows between IoT devices, systems and cloud applications throughout a building for better facilities data management.

Deeplite

NICK ROMANO, CO-FOUNDER, CEO Deeplite develops artificial intelligence software for creating highly compact, high-performance, deep neural networks that are deployed across the cloud and IoT devices, sensors, smart cameras, phones, drones and vehicles. The Montreal-based company’s Neutrino software optimizer technology improves deep neural network performance by making the networks faster, smaller and more power-efficient within resource-limited AI environments.

IOTech

KEITH STEELE, CEO IOTech looks to accelerate industrial IoT adoption by automating the deployment of IoT systems at the edge. Its Edge Xpert, Edge XRT and Edge Builder products are used to help develop, deploy, connect and manage IoT systems at scale. IoTech, based in Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K., partners with Google Cloud to provide smart, integrated edge-cloud solutions for enterprise companies.

SHLOMI BEN HAIM, CO-FOUNDER, CEO

SATYA NADELLA, CHAIRMAN, CEO

UrsaLeo

UrsaLeo, San Francisco, develops the Gemini immersive 3-D system that integrates digital twin technology with real-time and historical data from IoT streams and other enterprise systems (including ERP, maintenance and document management systems) to deliver a holistic view of assets and facilities. Digital twin is a virtual representation of a physical object—such as industrial equipment—or process.

Zededa

SAID OUISSAL, FOUNDER, CEO Zededa, San Jose, Calif., provides visibility, control and security technology for distributed edge operations. Businesses and organizations use the company’s cloud-based orchestration to analyze IoT data and make real-time decisions. Zededa’s technology assists in deploying artificial intelligence and machine learning at the distributed edge, optimizing edge infrastructure investments, securing edge operations, remotely accessing distributed assets and “futureproofing” multi-cloud strategies.

Zyter

SANJAY GOVIL, FOUNDER, CEO Zyter describes its SmartSpaces platform as an integration tool for intelligent IoT across multiple vertical industries. SmartSpaces, an IoT-as-a-Service system, connects IoT devices and sensors and provides actionable insight from collected data. SmartSpaces can be deployed for use in buildings, smart cities, hospitals, schools and universities, stadiums, factories and more.

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CRN STORAGE 100

Who’s Got Your Backup?

By Joseph F. Kovar

Solution providers looking to place their bets on vendors with the most innovative technologies can turn to the Storage 100, which shines a spotlight on 2022’s forward-thinkers

T

he storage world is driving in the fast lane of change as the focus on speeds and feeds gives way to a focus on business requirements.

Businesses may still require the highest-performance, lowest-latency storage systems for specific workloads where speed is still king. But in most cases, the right storage technology for a workload depends on specific features and services—consumption-based pricing, cloud connectivity, virtualization, resiliency and anti-ransomware capabilities.

And it’s solution providers who are driving that storage discussion with their customers about how storage technology will be deployed—on-premises, in the cloud, or a combination of the two. Solution providers looking to place their bets on vendors with the most innovative technologies can turn to CRN’s annual Storage 100 list, which shines a spotlight on 2022’s most forward-thinking vendors.

NetApp and Pure Storage have nearly completely repositioned themselves with a focus on how to manage data across cloud and on-premises infrastructures, IBM is growing its softwaredefined storage business, and Dell Technologies and Hewlett Packard Enterprise have fully embraced storage services and consumption-based models.

Today, it’s the software that defines all the features of storage, said Michael Tanenhaus, principal at Mavenspire, an Annapolis,

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Md.-based solution provider and longtime Dell channel partner.

“Every iteration of the software brings more features,” Tanenhaus told CRN. The hardware helps drive the performance.”

Tanenhaus said storage technology is being recycled, with features that used to be carried out in hardware now done by software.

“Look at AWS,” he said. “Some of the services carried out in the cloud are those done by storage arrays for a long time. Now AWS is bringing in those features like automatic tiering to make sure data gets put into the right place.”

Software is evolving to address performance issues, Tanenhaus said.

“In software development, when technology is first kicked from development to production, it’s kicked to hardware first because the software isn’t fast enough,” he said. “But eventually software gets fast enough to take care of the performance. Sometimes a tweak to a line of code can double the performance.”

On the following pages CRN highlights 50 software-defined storage vendors, in which software capabilities, services and cloud connectivity are included; 20 data management vendors, which ensure that the right data is available as needed; 20 data protection vendors, which ensure data is backed up, archived and accessible; and 10 storage component vendors, which give software and data a hardware base on which to operate. ■

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SOFTWARE-DEFINED STORAGE VENDORS

Software is at the heart of storage. Regardless of data type, workload, protocol or location, software determines the storage services. This remains true whether data resides or is managed on a hardware device, a virtual array or in the cloud. Here are 50 of the hottest software-defined storage vendors today.

22dot6

Diamond Lauffin

AC&NC

Founder, CEO

Gene Leyzarovich President, CEO

AgileStorage

Christof Zihlmann CEO

Amazon Web Services Adam Selipsky

Ctera Networks

Liran Eshel

Co-Founder, CEO

CEO

2 2 d o t 6 in 2021 came out of stealth with a new software-defined storage technology that completely abstracts storage resources regardless of storage hardware or which clouds the data resides on. The company aims to bridge virtualization, hardware abstraction, data services and storage accessibility to help customers exit existing storage platforms.

Advanced Computer & Network Corp., known as AC&NC, is a builder of custom NAS, SAN, cloud and hyperconverged infrastructure storage systems under the JetStor name. The company targets private and, via its GSA contract, government clients. The company works with integrators and others.

AgileStorage develops a storage hypervisor platform based on its Hybrid Storage Pool Architecture, which integrates DRAM, flash and hard disk into a single storage pool. The platform features direct cache tiering to provide the performance and low latency of all-flash storage but at a lower cost, according to the company.

Public cloud services heavyweight AWS is also a top provider of storage capacity. AWS S3, or Simple Storage Service, is the industry-standard protocol for object storage. The company also provides file-based and block-based storage.

Many storage vendors’ APIs tie to AWS S3.

C t e r a ’s Global File System is a federated distributed file system for high-per formance file access, multisite collaboration and data protection. It is the heart of the Cetera Enterprise File Services Platform, which offers businesses unlimited scalability, realtime collaboration for any number of users, and centralized management and control.

Cloudian

DataCore

DDN

Dell Technologies

Fujitsu

Michael Tso Co-Founder, CEO

Dave Zabrowski CEO

Cloudian develops cloud-based file and object storage technology with a focus on AWS S3 compatibility. The company in 2021 expanded its cloud storage capabilities with container integrations with such companies as VMware, Kasten by Veeam and Red Hat OpenShift, and expanded its AWS relationship in several areas.

DataCore was an early pioneer in softwaredefined storage that turns industry-standard servers into storage appliances serving block, file and object storage. DataCore in 2021 made two acquisitions: container-attached storage and OpenEBS o p e n - s o u rc e K u b e rnetes storage technology developer MayaData and software-defined object storage developer Caringo.

Fungible

Google Cloud

Eric Hayes CEO

Fungible developed the Fungible Storage Cluster, calling it the world’s first composable storage offering combining public cloud agility and scalability with on-premises security and performance. At its base is the Fungible Data Processing Unit, which disaggregates compute and storage resources across data centers.

Thomas Kurian CEO

G o o g l e Cloud provides a wide range of storage capabilities and services. These include Cloud Storage object storage, Persistent Disk block storage for integration with Google Cloud products such as Compute Engine and GKE, and Filestore file-based storage. The company also offers archival storage.

Alex Bouzari Co-Founder, Chairman, CEO

Michael Dell Founder, Chairman, CEO

DDN is a developer of storage for high-performance computing and other high-performance requirements. It offers software-defined storage, NVMe all-flash and hybrid flash storage, and all-flash storage for virtualized environments. 2021 saw the company move solidly into AI-focused storage, including a partnership with Nvidia.

Dell, the world’s largest public storage vendor via its 2016 EMC acquisition, offers primary and secondary storage based on its software. Dell in 2021 signaled its intent to be a major cloud storage player with Dell Apex Cloud Services, Dell EMC ObjectScale software for Kubernetes, and new AI-focused offerings with VMware and Nvidia.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Antonio Neri

Hitachi Vantara

President, CEO

HPE is a major storage hardware and software vendor and a leader in storage intelligence. While it continues to develop allflash and hybrid storage, hyperconverged infrastructure, and data protection offerings, its primary focus is on HPE GreenLake, which provides cloud-like flexibiilty and consumption-based capabilities.

Gajen Kandiah CEO

H i t a c h i Vantara combines technologies from three former stand-alone companies—storage vendor Hitachi Data Systems, big data and IoT developer Lumada and Pentaho data management and analytics. The company in 2021 significantly enhanced its midsize enterprise storage, object storage and AIOps capabilities.

Takahito Tokita

CEO, Chief Digital Transformation Officer

Fujitsu offers a wide range of Eternusbranded traditional RAID, Primeflex-branded hyperconverged infrastructure and software-defined storage technologies targeting primary storage uses. The company also provides data protection technology in the form of backup appliances and tape systems.

Huawei

Liang Hua Chairman

China-based Huawei, one of the world’s largest storage vendors, has little presence in the U.S. market because of U.S. concerns about potential Chinese government ties. Huawei’s OceanStor line includes all-flash, hybrid flash and distributed storage, and the company also offers hyperconverged infrastructure systems as well as data protection and backup appliances.

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CRN STORAGE 100 IBM

Arvind Krishna

Chairman, CEO

IBM’s storage focus is primarily on storage software , particularly on its IBM Spectrum line of software-defined storage technology. The technology includes offerings for management of AI data, file and object optimization, and data management, archiving and protection.

Lightbits Labs

Eran Kirzner

Infinidat

NetApp

George Kurian CEO

NetApp has morphed into a leader in seamlessly storing, migrating and managing data across on-premises, public cloud and private cloud environments. The company has expanded beyond its traditional storage focus with a new emphasis on cloudnative CloudOps services and is closely tied with AWS, Google and Azure public clouds.

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Inspur

Leon Zheng

iXsystems

Mike Lauth

Infinidat focuses on technology to build high-performance storage infrastructures at multi-petabyte scale. In addition to its flagship InfiniBox technology for mixed application workloads at multi-petabyte scale, the company offers the InfiniBox SSA for low-latency, highestperforming workloads and InfiniGuard for data protection and cyber resilience.

China-based I n s p u r, a major worldwide server manufacturer, is also one of the largest storage builders. Inspur builds all-flash and hybrid flash storage systems as well a s s o ft wa r e - d e f i n e d storage technology and virtualized storage systems targeting onpremises, cloud and AI workloads.

iX systems’ Tr u e N A S appliances offer file, block and object storage. They are built on open-source OpenZFS storage technology and are available in offerings targeting home and small businesses to mission-critical enterprise workloads.

The company also offers TrueRack systems that converge server and storage technology targeting cloud deployments.

Linbit

Liqid

Microsoft

Philipp Reisner

Co-Founder, CEO

Sumit Puri

Lenovo

Co-Founder, CEO

CEO

CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Lightbits Labs, in which Cisco, Dell, Intel and Micron have invested, develops software-defined scale-out, disaggregated NVMe-over-TCP storage technology. Lightbits said its NVMe/TCP technology separates storage and compute without touching the network or data center infrastructure to deliver the same IOPS as directattached NVMe SSDs with up to a 50 percent decrease in latency.

Phil Bullinger

Co-Founder, CEO

Satya Nadella

Chairman, CEO

Yang Yuanqing

Chairman, CEO

Lenovo’s flagship ThinkSystem storage systems offers a wide range of options including all-flash and hybrid-flash unified SAN/ NAS systems, SAN arrays, direct-attached storage and tape storage. Lenovo, via its ThinkAgile hyperconverged infrastructure line, partners with several software-defined storage technology developers including Nutanix, Microsoft and VMware.

MinIO

Anand Babu Periasamy Co-Founder, CEO

Linbit’s open-source Linstor block storage technology targets large Linux server clusters and distributed replicated block device systems for high-availability clusters or cloud integration. Its enterprise subscription version, Linbit SDS, includes DRBD, Linstor and support to provide persistent Linux block storage for Kubernetes, OpenStack, OpenNebula and OpenShift environments.

Composable i n f rastru c ture developer Liqid’s Matrix software enables quick provisioning, scaling and redeploying of bare-metal infrastructure using industry-standard compute, networking, storage, GPU and FPGA devices via its intelligent fabric. The company in December 2021 unveiled a Series C round of funding that brought in $100 million to scale its Liqid Matrix business.

The A zure cloud platform brings together over 200 products and cloud services to help customers build, run and manage applications across on-premises cloud and edge environments. Among its services are Azure Disk Storage for block storage, Azure Data Lake Storage for analytics, Azure Files for file storage and Azure NetApp Files for enterprise-grade file shares.

MinIO develops a high-performance cloud-native object storage suite targeting hybrid cloud, public cloud, private cloud and edge environments using the AWS S3 API. The software-defined distributed object storage system runs on industrystandard hardware and is Kubernetes-native.

It integrates with partners including VMware, Splunk, Hadoop, Veeam and Teradata.

Nutanix

Open-E

OpenIO

PAC Storage

Rajiv Ramaswami President, CEO

Nutanix pioneered the development of hyperconverged infrastructure that combines compute, storage and networking into integrated stacks for on-premises, edge and multi-cloud environments. In 2021 it expanded the Nutanix Cloud Platform, which suppor ts workloads across public and private clouds, hypervisors and containers.

Krzysztof Franek

President, CEO

O p e n - E develops IP-based storage management software that enables SMBs and small to medium enterprises to turn commodity server hardware into storage systems.

Its Open-E JovianDSS is ZFS- and Linux-based storage software for enterprise storage environments, while Open-E DSS V7 is aimed at building and managing centralized file and block storage.

Laurent Denel CEO

O p e n I O develops scalable, AWS S3-compatible object storage technology aimed at big data, AI and highperformance computing workloads. The software is hardware-agnostic and supports heterogenous hardware within the same cluster and enables instant and unlimited scaling without rebalancing.

Rick Crane CEO

PA C S t o r age, an aff i l iate c o m p a ny o f server and workstation manufacturer Boxx Technologies, manufactures scale-out NAS, all-flash and NVMe storage systems targeting hybrid cloud, AI, virtualization, surveillance, data protection, virtual desktops and database applications.

A D VE RT I S E M E N T

SECURI SECURITY CRN

100

Combating The Skyrocketing Losses From Cyberattacks Q. Why is it so difficult to get cyber insurance?

A. Ransomware is responsible for billions of dollars in losses annually and insurance

is paying a big portion of the costs: business interruption, data restoration, forensic, legal and third-party liability. Half of the health care breaches were caused by ransomware,1 while the largest ransom paid in 2021 was $40 million, by an insurance carrier.2 Another 90 percent of financial institutions have been targeted by ransomware3, while 33 percent of the attacks on governments were from ransomware.4 All of this has led to losses for insurance and required the underwriters to raise rates, limit coverages and impose strict guidelines on what security components are running at a company to qualify for insurance. Carriers are converging toward what the security industry knows to be basic blocking and tackling needed to avoid Ransomware: EDR, MFA, IDR, patching, etc. Companies can no longer “check the box,” they must prove they have proper security controls in place to renew their policy or get new coverage.

Q. Why is this important to the VAR community?

A. Insurance understands the technology ecosystem, but they partner with tech

firms to ensure the minimum criteria are in place. We have seen this for years with the insurance panels for incident response and pre-breach services. These programs enable tech firms to reduce that attack surface area and reduce likelihood of a breach.

Insurance needs to prevent the breach through proactive services and technology, delivered to their insureds, that meet the minimum criteria and mitigate risks.

Q. Why SentinelOne?

A. SentinelOne has partnered with leading insurance carriers to make our software

available pre-breach, so that the insured can “skip the breach” and avoid losses. AXA XL, Coalition and others, offer discounted software along with training to grade the cyber readiness of their clients. When an insurance carrier offers this to their client, that lead and any licensing, is transacted with that partner.

Our Insurance Program addresses the core solution to stopping ransomware while leveraging our channel partners to address the issue of scale and diversity. In addition to the EDR/XDR that SentinelOne provides, insureds need complementary controls like MFA, PAM, anti-phishing and restorable backups, and our channel partners can provide those solutions.

1. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/2021-hph-cybersecurity-forecast.pdf 2. https://www.businessinsider.com/cna-financial-hackers-40-million-ransom-cyberattack-2021-5 3. https://www.prdistribution.com/news/financial-institutions-90-of-them-have-been-targeted-by-ransomware/3279096 4. https://securityintelligence.com/posts/threat-actors-targeted-industries-2020-finance-manufacturing-energy/

Defeating Every Attack. Every Second. Everyday. https://partners.sentinelone.com

Barnaby Page

Vice President – Business Development

”

Cyber insurance is now helping to set security stack requirements for organizations today.

”

CRN STORAGE 100 Panasas

Tom Shea

Panzura

President, CEO

Executive Chairwoman, CEO

Pavilion Data Systems Dario Zamarian

Pure Storage

Charles Giancarlo

CEO

Qnap Systems

Teddy Kuo Founder, Chairman, CEO

Chairman, CEO

Panasas’ PanFS parallel file system targets deep learning, precision medicine and autonomous vehicles with a highly scalable architecture along with data reliability and availability. PanFS automatically balances and optimizes CPU, networking cards, DRAM and storage media as director nodes and storage nodes are added.

Panzura offers a multi-cloud data management platform with a unified data engine designed to securely power large-scale multis i te e nte rp ris e dat a workflows. Intelligent edge technologies help simplify data management, provide analytics, reduce complexity and improve security.

Pavilion Data Systems provides high-performance, highly scalable storage for AI, machine learning, highperformance computing and analytics workloads.

The Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Array works with NVMe and NVMe-oF to provide over 2.2 petabytes of capacity, up to 120-GBps read performance, and up to 20 million IOPS in a 4U enclosure.

Pure Storage was born as a developer of all-flash storage technology. The company has been pushing hard to closely tie storage managament and ransomware protection across on-premises and cloud environments with its Pure-as-a-Ser vice offering and its Portworx Kubernetes container management.

Qnap develops NAS appliances and video surveillance for home, small businesses and enterprise users and has branched into cloudbased NAS. For enterprise users, Qnap provides all-flash storage with disaster recovery and highavailability storage, along with archive storage and AW S S 3 - c o m p a t i b l e object storage.

Quantum

Qumulo

Scale Computing

Scality

SoftIron

Jamie Lerner

Bill Richter President, CEO

Chairman, CEO

Jeff Ready

Co-Founder, CEO

Jerome Lecat CEO

Phil Straw CEO

Quantum is now a leader in storage technology for media and entertainment, surveillance and industrial IoT verticals, as well as smart storage for research and analytics.

The company’s StorNext file systems provide highper formance file and block storage while its ActiveScale offering provides object storage cold storage archiving.

Qumulo’s high-performance file data platform stores, manages and creates workflows at massive scale across hybrid cloud environments. This provides dynamic scaling, intelligent caching, real-time analytics, an advanced API to automate and manage data services, easy migration to the cloud, data protection, and security of data from external threats.

Scale Computing’s HC3 IT infrastructure platform is a fully integrated, highly available platform that combines virtualization, disaster recovery, compute and shared storage.

The HC3 self-healing platform identifies, mitigates and corrects infrastructure problems in real time.

Scale Computing in 2021 unveiled HC3 hyperconverged infrastructure offerings for surveillance and security.

Scalit y ’s technology manages file and object data from cloud to core to the edge. Its Scality Ring provides scale-out file and object storage for hybrid cloud storage and data management, while its Scality Artesca provides lightweight cloud-native object storage. Scality targets diverse workloads like data protection, archiving, big data analytics, content and collaboration, and ransomware protection.

SoftIron develops HyperDrive storage appliances based on the Ceph open-source software-defined storage platform designed for scalable, unified object, block and file storage. The appliances target private and public clouds and enterprise scale, with up to 6 petabytes of capacity in a 42U rack and are available in four models depending on cost, storage density and performance requirements.

StarWind Software

StoneFly

StorCentric

StorOne

StorPool Storage

Anton Kolomyeytsev CEO, CTO, Chief Architect

StarWind develops storage hyperconvergence and virtualization software, as well as all-flash hyperconverged infrastructure applianc e s . S o ft ware includes StarWind Virtual SAN for building virtualized storage pools for any hypervisor, StarWind SAN and NAS to turn servers or a group of servers into shared storage, and StarWind Virtual Tape Library.

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Mo Tahmasebi Founder, President, CEO

StoneFly is the longtime developer of the StoneFusion storage operating system that is at the base of the company’s storage and hyperconverged infrastructure offerings.

It can turn businesss’ bare-metal servers into enterprise SAN, NAS and AWS S3 object storage appliances. StoneFly ’s technologies can also be used for cloud-based Storage as a Service.

Mihir Shah CEO

StorCentric, in a series of acquisitions, has built a full range of storage offerings .

These include Vexata and Violin Systems allflash storage; Nexsan Unity high-performance block , file and object storage; Nexsan Beast high-density block storage; Nexsan Assureon compliant archiving technologies; Drobo prosumer and SMB storage; and Retrospect on-premises and cloud storage.

Gal Naor

Co-Founder, CEO

StorOne develops software-defined storage technology for enterprise all-flash or hybrid arrays, virtual storage, secondary storage, cloud storage, or hybrid on-premises and cloud storage, all supporting block, file and object storage. The company in late 2021 integrated NVMe over Fabric in its S1 Enterprise Storage Platform and added ransomware protection to its S1:Backup technology.

Boyan Ivanov CEO

StorPool aims its distributed block-level storage software at replacing traditional SANs, all-flash arrays or other storage products for use in public or private clouds or shared hosting. StorPool’s software is available as a fully managed storage offering and integrates with Kubernetes, OpenStack, CloudStack, Open Nebula, VMware and more.

Synology

Derren Lu

Vast Data

CEO

Synology develops NAS, networking and surveillance technology, along with software targeting data protection, cloud, and file sync and share. Its NAS systems are all managed by the company’s DiskStation Manager web-based operating system. Synology in 2021 expanded DSM and its Synology C2 platform with new cloud services.

20

Renen Hallak

Co-Founder, CEO

Vast Data’s Universal Storage technology combines exabyte scalability with multitenant quality-of-service tools to help businesses consolidate data and applications onto one scale-out flash tier. The c o m p a n y ’s a l l - f l a s h system stores up to 1 petabyte per rack unit to build what it calls a “data center in a rack.”

VMware

Raghu Raghuram

WekaIO

Zadara

Co-Founder, CEO

CEO

VMware built on its early lead in server virtualization to become a major player in hyperconverged infrastructure.

It has become a main driver of modern application development and bringing applications to hybrid cloud, multi-cloud and containerized environments backed with cloud-focused security.

Liran Zvibel

WekaIO targets AI and machine learning, highperformance data analytics and containerized workloads with its NVMe-native, resilient, POSIX-compliant, and shared Wek aFS file system running on commodity servers. It delivers high-bandwidth, low-latency performance over InfiniBand or Ethernet-enabled GPU-based or CPU-based clusters.

Nelson Nahum CEO

Z a d a r a focuses on accelerating edge cloud adoption with secure, elastic self-service compute, networking and storage.

Its zCompute technology lets customers develop, run and virtualize applications in co-location, private data centers or public clouds, while zStorage works with structured or unstructured data with any file, block or object storage protocol.

DATA MANAGEMENT VENDORS

Finding value from data requires management of data copies and data life cycles, ensuring it meets governance and regulatory requirements, managing security, and ensuring safe access to data regardless of whether it is in the cloud, on-premises, at the edge or any combination. Here are 20 of the hottest data management vendors today.

Aparavi

Adrian Knapp

Cohesity

Mohit Aron

Collibra

Founder, CEO

Founder, CEO

Felix Van de Maele

Commvault

Sanjay Mirchandani

Founder, CEO

President, CEO

Datadobi

Ian Leysen

Co-Founder, CEO

Aparavi develops a cloud-based data intelligence platform to help busine sse s discover, automate, govern and consolidate distributed data for secure use in analytics, machine learning and collaboration. The Aparavi Platform in 2021 became available on the Microsoft Azure marketplace to provide data discovery with automated classification, optimization and migration.

Cohesity develops AI-powered data management technology focused on Helios, a multi-cloud platform that provides data management services, available on-premises or from the cloud, including software-defined file and object services, data protection, disaster recovery, security, dev/test and analytics. Investors in Cohesity include AWS, HPE and Cisco.

The Collibra Data Intelligence Cloud is an integrated platform to automate workflows and deliver insight. It includes an enterprise data catalog to find, access and deliver data, automated data governance, real-time predictive self-service data quality, native API access to data and applications, embedded privacy, and visibility into data transformations and flows.

Commvault develops an intelligent data services platform that provides services anywhere data lives, including in on-premises, hybrid or multi-cloud environments. Those services, including data protection, security, compliance and governance, transformation and data insight, are delivered via SaaS or integrated appliances or are managed by partners.

D a t a d o b i ’s software helps businesses optimize unstructured storage environments. It can migrate NAS and object storage to and from anywhere and protect and recover the data. Datadobi in July launched version 5.12 of its software, touting its vendor-neutral unstructured data mobility engine that is designed to handle the largest storage environments’ complexity.

Data Dynamics

Delphix

Diamanti

Egnyte

Hammerspace

Piyush Mehta CEO

Data Dynamics manages unstructured data via its Unified Unstructured Data Management Platform, which provides data analytics, mobility, security and compliance across an enterprise’s entire data set. The platform is aimed at helping to drive risk mitigation, enhance data security and optimize storage in hybrid, public and multi-cloud environments.

Jedidiah Yueh Founder, CEO

De lphi x ’s DevOps Data Platform is an API-first data platform for multi-cloud environments that brings together enterprisewide data coverage and data compliance to help customers with modern CI/ CD deployment workflows, accelerate the journey to the cloud and increase the adoption of disruptive AI technologies.

Chris Hickey CEO The Diamanti Enterprise Kubernetes Platform is a complete turnkey Kubernetes stack that deploys as a scale-out hyperconverged infrastructure appliance. Each contains the company’s intelligent networking and storage architecture, low-latency NVMe storage, plugand-play networking, open-source Kubernetes and support.

Vineet Jain CEO

Egnyte is the developer of the Egny te Platform for data management. The platform provides file sharing and collaboration, life-cycle management for large data volumes, secure remote access, machine learning-based content intelligence, compliance and audit capabilities with over 500 partners, and smart content discovery and classification.

David Flynn CEO

The Hammerspace Global Data Environment makes network shares visible and accessible anywhere in the world to a business’ remote data centers and public clouds.

The system spans across data centers, AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud to provide metadata replication, file-granular data services, intelligent policies and transparent data orchestration.

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CRN STORAGE 100 Komprise

Kumar Goswami

LucidLink

CEO

The Komprise Intelligent Data Management platform lets businesses analyze, migrate, tier, replicate and extract file and object data. It provides dynamic data analytics to analyze NAS and object data usage and growth, and analyzes data across clouds and within cloud accounts and buckets to help optimize costs.

Quobyte

Björn Kolbeck

Co-Founder, CEO

20

Morro Data

Paul Tien

Nasuni

Co-Founder, CEO

Paul Flanagan

Quest Software

Patrick Nichols

CEO

CEO

LucidLink Filespaces cloud-native NAS technology brings file data on the cloud to applications, file systems and high-performance workloads. It runs on endpoints and is delivered as SaaS with no virtual or physical appliance. It lets data stream directly from the cloud with no need to download or synchronize.

Morro Data CloudNAS is a hybrid cloud architecture with a caching gateway and a global file system to help enterprises modernize storage to sync, lock and protect office documents and design files with a cloudfirst approach while securely and quickly making data available with a familiar NAS interface.

Nasuni is a p ione er in the development of cloudnative global file systems.

The Nasuni technology lets businesses scale to any level because of its cloud-native design, which unifies isolated silos of file storage at hundreds of locations around the world into a single cloud offering.

Quest develops software to help businesses move, manage and secure infrastructures on-premises, in the cloud and across endpoints. The company’s offerings on the storage side include technologies for data governance, protection, operations, and migration and consolidation.

Snowflake

StorMagic

Veeam Software

Veritas

Frank Slootman

Co-Founder, CEO

Q u o b y t e ’s file and object storage software system is a POSI X-compatible , distributed parallel file system that works in cloud, on-premises and hybrid environments to provide policy-based data management, end-to-end data protection, and unified management that allows users to access the same file from any interface.

Peter Thompson

Chairman, CEO

Snowflake provides a single global platform for managing data and essential workloads with seamless data collaboration. It is a fully managed service that can power a near-unlimited number of concurrent workloads for data warehousing, data lakes, data engineering, data science, data application development and secure data sharing.

Dan Beer

Anand Eswaran

CEO

StorMagic helps businesses store, manage, protect and use data at and from the edge. Products include SvSAN, a two-node virtual SAN for hyperconverged edge and small data center sites; SvKMS, an encryption key manager for edge, data center and cloud; and ARQvault for ingesting, tiering and using unstructured data.

Chairman, CEO

Ve e a m i s a key provider of data management and data protection technologies for cloud, virtual, physical, SaaS and Kubernetes environments. In addition to its flagship data protection offering Veeam Availability Suite, the company offers comprehensive monitoring and analytics via its Veeam ONE technology.

Greg Hughes CEO

Veritas, long a data protection leader, has moved solidly into data management with its NetBackup IT Analytics technology, formerly known as Aptare, which aggregates insight from all environments through a unified interface, and Data Insight, which provides data classification, file analysis and unstructured data visibility.

DATA PROTECTION VENDORS

Protecting data is a complicated business, one where an error can cause a company untold harm. However, this is a fast-moving part of the storage industry, and vendors are working hard to make data easier. Here are 20 of the hottest vendors that are helping simplify data protection.

Acronis

Patrick Pulvermueller CEO

Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud brings together data prote c tion and data security, including AI-based anti-malware, antivirus and endpoint protection management, in a single platform specifically for MSPs and other ser vice providers. Customers can add extensions for advanced security, backup, disaster recovery and more as needed.

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Arcserve

Brannon Lacey CEO

Arcserve has been providing data protection, archiving and disaster recovery technologies to channel partners for over 30 years. The company now has a strong presence in cloud, onpremises and highly virtualized environments with both its stand-alone software and its UDP series of data protection appliances.

Asigra

Eric Simmons President, CEO

Asigra provides enterprise data prote c tion, busine s s continuity, ransomware protection, compliance management and data protection appliances to protect data in physical, virtual and cloud environments. The company ’s new Asigra Cloud Backup with Deep MFA adds multifactor authentication to help prevent backup data deletions or malicious encryption.

AvePoint

Tianyi “TJ” Jiang CEO

AvePoint offers a full suite of SaaS offerings to migrate, manage and protect data in Microsoft 365 environments.

The company said its SaaS offerings are in use by over 8 million cloud users as well as by MSPs to support and manage their small- and midsizebusiness customers with multitenant data protection capabilities.

Axcient

David Bennett CEO

Axcient provides data protection and disaster recovery technologies exclusively through MSPs. The company’s technologies address a wide range of customer issues including file sync and share, backup, disaster recovery, and cloud-to-cloud backup for many of the most popular cloud applications being used by small to midsize businesses.

Backblaze

Gleb Budman

Chairperson, CEO

Calamu Technologies Paul Lewis

Clumio

Founder, CEO

Poojan Kumar

Cobalt Iron

Richard Spurlock

Co-Founder, CEO

Founder, CEO

Backblaze provides multi-cloud, multi-region data protection in business-focused and personal-focused versions at what it has said is about one-quarter the cost of similar services from AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform, with simple, up-front pricing. The company had its IPO in November, raising $100 million.

C a l a m u Pro te c t combines data and ransomware protection that automatically fragments data across multiple separate locations while at rest to nullify the impact of a breach or ransomware attack. Individual data fragments on their own are worthless, according to the company, but combined with self-healing help provide data resilience and compliance.

C l u m i o offers secure, scalable data protection as a service for AWS environments. Clumio Protect provides ransomware protection, compliancedriven data retention, and rapid recovery for AWS EBS, EC2 and S3 instances as well as AWS native databases, while Clumio Discover provides enhanced reporting and deep visibility into AWS.

Cobalt Iron provides SaaS-based enterprise data protection technology. Its Compass architecture uses modern analytics, SaaS, multicloud and virtualization technologies as a base for Commander, its web dashboard with a simple and intuitive user experience, and Analytics Engine, which delivers insight for enterprise data protection.

Druva

FalconStor

HYCU

Infrascale

Jaspreet Singh Founder, CEO

Todd Brooks CEO

Simon Taylor CEO

Rob Peterson

Datto

Tim Weller CEO

While Datto in 2017 became an MSP platform provider with its Autotask merger, the company was an early data protection technology pioneer. Datto continues to offer leading MSP-focused data protection technologies including file protection, cloud-based continuity, SaaS protection, sync and share, and Azure-focused protection.

MSP360

CEO

Brian Helwig CEO

Druva developed its infinitely scalable SaaS-focused Data Resiliency Cloud to give businesses cyber, data and operational resilience.

Delivered as a service, it includes global deduplication and automated long-term retention, as well as built-in intelligence about data to help with ransomware monitoring, analytics and more.

FalconStor help s modernize hybrid cloud backup and archiving.

Its product line includes StorSafe software to turn physical or virtual servers into a virtual tape drive, StorGuard software that lets x86 servers provide advanced data services without impacting array performance, and StorSight for secure multitenant management.

HYCU provides a multi-cloud backup as a service offering a native cloud experience with full application awareness.

The company offers versions purpose-built for enterprise clouds built on Nutanix or VMware, as well as for public clouds including Google, Azure and AWS and for Kubernetes and Microsoft 365.

Infrascale provides cloud-based backup and disaster recovery. Its Infrascale Cloud Application Backup protects Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Box, Dropbox and Salesforce data; Infrascale Cloud Backup provides direct-to-cloud protection for mobile devices and remote offices; and Infrascale Backup & Disaster Recovery recovers data fast after a failure.

MSP360, formerly known as CloudBerry Lab, provides integrated data protection, secure remote access software, and remote monitoring and management. Its MSP360 Managed Backup protects data from Windows, VMware, Hyper-V, MacOS, Microsoft 365, Linux and Google Workspace to AWS, Google, Wasabi, Azure and local disk.

Nakivo

OwnBackup

Rewind

Rubrik

Wasabi

Bruce Talley Co-Founder, CEO

N a k i v o develops data protection and site recovery software for SMB and enterprise customers. Nakivo Backup & Replication offers enterprise-grade-level capabilities while being lightweight and easy to use. It includes a full suite of backup, replication and recovery capabilities for physical, virtual and cloud environments.

Sam Gutmann CEO

OwnBackup is a key data backup, archiving and sandbox seeding app on the Salesforce AppExchange with over 4,000 customers. It counts Salesforce Ventures as an investor. OwnBackup also helps increase the security of Salesforce data and targets protecting data in other SaaS applications including Microsoft Dynamics.

Mike Potter CEO

R e w i n d focuses on protecting data related to specific SaaS applications, including such commonly used applic a t i o n s a s S h o p i f y, BigCommerce, QuickBooks Online, GitHub, Trello, Microsoft 365 and Jira. It also provides continuous, automatic copies of data generated by SaaS applications including Shopify, BigCommerce and QuickBooks Online.

Bipul Sinha

Co-Founder, CEO

Rubrik proves zero-trust security data protection, focusing on making data natively immutable so that it can never be modified, encrypted or deleted by ransomware. Its applications also provide ransomware investigation, sensitive data discovery, incident containment and orchestrated application recovery, all available as a subscription.

David Friend Founder, President, CEO

W a s a b i develops what it calls Hot Cloud Storage, a cloud storage technology the company said is one-fifth the price of competing storage clouds, with no egress fees, API call charges or additional hidden fees. It is also the back-end storage cloud of many data protection vendors, including Nutanix, MSP360 and Veeam.

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10

COMPONENT MAKERS

While software is at the heart of storage systems, hardware components are at the base. Those components, including processors, SSDs and hard drives, interface cards and memory controllers, make it possible to build the right hardware to run the software and services that define how businesses store, protect, access and share their most valuable assets: data. Here are 10 of the hottest component makers today.

Kingston

John Tu

Kioxia

Co-Founder, CEO

Kingston is a leading manufacturer of memory modules of all types, SSDs, USB flash drives, memory cards and card readers, and embedded and industrial flash and DRAM components.

Kingston said in 2021 that it is the top third-party DRAM module supplier as well as the largest supplier of branded SSD modules, citing research firm TrendForce.

Seagate Technology

Dave Mosley CEO

Seagate is a top SSD and hard-drive manufacturer and has recently expanded its services capability with its Lyve cloud technologies.

The company in 2021 introduced its Exos Application Platform, which combines storage and compute to intelligently capture, store and analyze data, and extended its Lyve edge-to-cloud storage platform with data transfer as a service.

Toshiaki Fujikawa,

President, CEO, Kioxia America

Micron Technology Sanjay Mehrotra

Samsung

Kinam Kim,

Vice Chairman, CEO, Device Solutions Division

President, CEO

Kioxia, formerly known as Toshiba Memory, is the world’s second-largest memory manufacturer. It manufactures 3-D flash memory, managed flash memory and SLC NAND flash memory, along with enterprise, data center and client SSDs. It is also a key supplier of SSDs, memory cards and U.S. flash drives for consumer devices.

M i c r o n Technology, the world’s third-largest memory manufacturer and for now the only one based in the U.S., produces a broad portfolio of memory technologies including DRAM, NAND, managed NAND and NOR flash, along with memory cards for mission-critical applications, and SSDs for client, enterprise, cloud, industrial and automotive use.

Samsung, the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer, produces DRAM chips and modules; SSDs for data center, enterprise and client use; and consumer-focused SSDs and memory cards.

Samsung entered production of PCIe 5.0 SSDs for enterprise servers, along with data center SSDs customized for hyperscale environments.

Solidigm

Super Micro Computer

Swissbit

Rob Crooke CEO

Solidigm was formed in late 2021 when Intel unveiled plans to sell its SSD business and certain NAND SSDassociated intellectual properties along with a China-based NAND memory manufacturing facility to South Koreabased SK Hynix . The company then established Solidigm for that purpose.

Charles Liang Founder, President, Chairman, CEO

When a storage manufacturer or systems integrator wants to build custom systems, one of the first places they look to for the hardware part is Supermicro.

The company develops high-performance server and storage systems and components for data center, cloud computing, enterprise IT, big data, highperformance computing and embedded markets.

Silvio Muschter CEO

Swissbit manufactures storage, security and embedded IoT technologies for customers storing and protecting data in industrial, network communications, automotive, medical and fiscal applications, as well as across IoT. Storage components include PCIe and SATA SSDs, memory cards and USB devices.

ScaleFlux

Hao Zhong

Co-Founder, CEO

ScaleFlux ’s C o m p utational Storage Drives start with its own storage processor with programmable cores that allow compute capabilities to be added to NVMe drives so that data can be processed without moving it from the drive to a server’s memory. The company works with partners like Micron to develop the devices.

Western Digital

David Goeckeler CEO

Western Digital is one of the planet’s top hard- dri ve and S SD manufacturers of storage media for PC, data center and embedded use. It is also a top storage industry investor via Western Digital Capital organization, with companies like Wasabi, Qumulo, Excelero, Iridia, WekaIO, Pliops and NGD in its portfolio.

2022 CRN

STORAGE

100

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APRIL 2022

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Intelligent Network Automation Creates New Opportunity For Channel Q. What industry trends are accelerating the adoption of commercial network automation software?

A. IT complexity induced by digital transformation, modernization and cloud adoption

coupled with network hardware shortages, growing lead times and technical labor shortages are accelerating the need for intelligent network automation. These issues are driving enterprises to look for commercial off-the-shelf, low-code/no-code network automation solutions like Gluware.

While some enterprises have adopted network automation using a broad mix of tools and scripts, many still manage their networks manually—80 percent according to analyst sources.1 With that, human error accounts for 70 percent of all network outages and network operations teams end up spending more than 80 percent of their time troubleshooting system issues.1 With Gluware, businesses can automate these functions and the operation of network infrastructure while integrating advanced capabilities for future scale with their current resources.

Q. Where do you see the opportunity for Channel Partners to enhance their services offerings with Gluware?

A. Channel partners have an immediate opportunity to add new revenue streams with

an emerging, subscription-based technology that will accelerate customers’ automation projects through scalable, intelligent software that can be used by existing network engineering talent. Gluware provides a powerful platform for partners to create services around a suite of applications and integrations that offer network discovery, inventory, drift monitoring, auditing and configuration management capabilities. Scalable, custom workflows and integrations can be developed using REST APIs mapped to key business outcomes. Gluware’s low code Integrated Development Environment (IDE), Gluware Lab, is also available to partners to develop custom integrations as a service for their clients.

Q. What is driving success for Gluware this year?

A. Gluware is experiencing rapid growth. The company successfully closed a $43M invest-

ment led by Bain Capital in Q4 of 2021, which enabled us to scale our technology innovation and marketing, sales and channel programs. We have broadened our sales coverage and hired dedicated channel leadership to support our partner community and bring our solutions to a wider set of customers. The surging customer demand for our capabilities combined with our focus on bringing to market advanced network RPA, security and AI solutions will propel our roadmap into the foreseeable future. Gluware is leading the industry because we help enterprises increase network performance, reliability, scalability and security while reducing complexity and costs with near-immediate time to value.

1 McKinsey Study of Network Operations for Cisco—2016

To learn more and become a Gluware partner, visit: www.gluware.com/partners.

Colin Henry

Vice President of Channel Sales

”

Digital transformation, IT modernization, cloud adoption— enterprise networks are only getting more complex. Our partners have an opportunity to capitalize on an emerging technology, Intelligent Network Automation, that solves the issue of network complexity, enables partners to capture new revenue streams and delivers rapid time to value to customers.

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TECH ELITE 250

Their Level Best Tech Elite 250 solution providers have achieved the highest levels of training and certification from the vendors they partner with, helping customers dervive the most value from today’s technologies.

By Rick Whiting

Scan here to see the full Tech Elite 250 database at crn.com

F

or the channel, selling and installing servers, PCs and storage hardware isn’t top of mind with customers today. They are instead demanding that solution providers offer not just leading-edge IT products but also provide a broad array of services and expertise around those products.

That means solution providers must be at the top of their game, staying up to date on vendors’ latest offerings as well as having the training and competencies to help customers get the most value out of those technologies.

The solution providers best positioned to do that are the ones that achieve and maintain the highest levels of training and certification from the IT vendors they partner with and occupy the top tiers of those vendors’ partner programs.

CRN’s annual Tech Elite 250 recognizes IT solution providers in North America that have reached the top levels in some of the leading IT vendors’ channel programs.

Some of the solution providers on this year’s list have made the Tech Elite 250 every year since its 2011 inauguration. They include Anexinet of Blue Bell, Pa.; GreenPages Technology Solutions of Kittery, Maine; and PKA Technologies of Montvale, N.J.

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APRIL 2022

GreenPages, for example, boasts Advanced & Consulting Partner status with Amazon Web Services, Advanced status with VMware, and is a Gold level partner with Cisco Systems, Dell Technologies and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Trace3, based in Irvine, Calif., can brag about its resume that includes being an AWS Advanced & Consulting Partner, a VMware Principal, and tier statuses of Cisco Gold, Dell Titanium, HPE Platinum and IBM Silver.

Other solution providers are making the Elite 250 list for the first time, including ATB Technologies of Chesterfield, Mo.; Clutch Solutions of Mesa, Ariz.; Ricoh IT Services of Exton, Pa.; and SnowCap Technologies of Lynnfield, Mass.

The following are snapshots of 25 solution providers, a sampling of this year’s Tech Elite 250. They include highlights of their partner program levels with AWS, Cisco, Dell, HPE, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and VMware.

For information on purchasing the complete list with all collected firmographic data, please contact sales@thechannelcompany.com or call 508-416-1175.

Agilant Solutions New York Top Executive: Sonny Chabra, Chairman, CEO Specializations include: AWS Advanced & Consulting Partner, Cisco Premier, Dell Technologies Platinum, HPE Platinum, VMware Advanced

AHEAD Chicago Top Executive: Daniel Adamany, Founder, CEO Specializations include: AWS Premier & Consulting Partner, Cisco Premier, Dell Technologies Titanium, VMware Principal

Anexinet Bluebell, Pa. Top Executive: Brian Glahn, CEO Specializations include: AWS Select, Cisco Premier, Dell Technologies Gold, HPE Platinum, Oracle Silver, VMware Authorized

Aqueduct Technologies Waltham, Mass.

Top Executive: Manak Ahluwalia, President, CEO Specializations include: Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Gold, HPE Business, Microsoft Network Member, VMware Advanced

Burwood Group Chicago Top Executive: Mark Theoharous, CEO Specializations Include: Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Gold, HPE Platinum, VMware Advanced

CBT Orange, Calif.

Top Executive: Kelly Ireland, Founder, CEO, CTO Specializations Include: Cisco Premier, Dell Technologies Gold, HPE Platinum, Microsoft Network Member, VMware Authorized

Converge Technology Solutions Gatineau, Quebec Top Executive: Shaun Maine, CEO Specializations include: Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Titanium, HPE Platinum, IBM Platinum, Microsoft Gold, VMware Principal

Deft Chicago Top Executive: Jordan Lowe, Co-Founder, CEO Specializations include: Cisco Global Gold, Dell Technologies Gold, HPE Business, Microsoft Gold, VMware Advanced

DH Technologies Leesburg, Va. Top Executive: Devin Henderson, CEO Specializations include: Cisco Premier, Dell Technologies Authorized, HPE Silver, IBM Registered, Microsoft Network Member, VMware Advanced

APRIL 2022

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TECH ELITE 250 Focus Technology

Boston

Top Executive: Doug Alexander, CEO Specializations include: AWS Select & Consulting Partner, Cisco Premier, Dell Technologies Gold, HPE Silver, Microsoft Silver, VMware Partner

GreenPages Technology Solutions Kittery, Maine Top Executive: Ron Dupler, CEO Specializations include: AWS Advanced & Consulting Partner, Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Gold, HPE Gold, VMware Advanced

Heartland Business Systems Little Chute, Wis. Top Executive: Peter Helander, Principal Specializations include: Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Gold, HPE Gold, VMware Advanced

Internetwork Engineering Charlotte, N.C. Top Executive: Chuck Steiner, President, CEO Specializations include: Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Authorized, Microsoft Gold, VMware Partner

Iron Bow Technologies Herndon, Va. Top Executive: Rene LaVigne, President, CEO Specializations include: AWS Select & Consulting Partner, Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Platinum, HPE Platinum, IBM Silver, Oracle Gold, VMware Advanced

iVision Atlanta Top Executive: David Degitz, CEO Specializations include: Cisco Premier, Dell Technologies Gold, HPE Silver, Microsoft Gold, VMware Advanced

Meridian IT Deerfield, Ill. Top Executive: Brad Ihlenfeld, CEO Specializations include: Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Gold, HPE Gold, IBM Platinum, Oracle Gold, VMware Advanced

Micro Strategies Parsippany, N.J. Top Executive: Anthony Bongiovanni, Founder, CEO Specializations include: Cisco Premier, HPE Gold, IBM Platinum, VMware Advanced

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Ntiva McLean, Va. Top Executive: Steven Freidkin, CEO Specializations include: Dell Technologies Gold

OneNeck IT Solutions Madison, Wis. Top Executive: Terry Swanson, President, CEO Specializations include: Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Gold, HPE Platinum, VMware Advanced

OST Grand Rapids, Mich.

Top Executive: Meredith Bronk, President, CEO Specializations include: Cisco Premier, Dell Technologies Gold, HPE Gold, Microsoft Gold, VMware Advanced

PKA Technologies Montvale, N.J. Top Executive: Felise Katz, CEO Specializations include: AWS Select, Cisco Premier, HPE Platinum, Microsoft Network Member, VMware Advanced

Thrive Foxborough, Mass.

Top Executive: Rob Stephenson, CEO Specializations include: Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Authorized, Microsoft Gold, VMware Partner

Trace3 Irvine, Calif.

Top Executive: Rich Fennessy, CEO Specializations include: AWS Advanced & Consulting Partner, Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Titanium, HPE Platinum, IBM Silver, Oracle Gold, VMware Principal

Whalley Computer Associates Southwick, Mass.

Top Executive: Michael Sheil, President Specializations include: Cisco Select, Dell Technologies Titanium, HPE Gold, VMware Advanced

World Wide Technology Maryland Heights, Mo. Top Executive: James Kavanaugh, CEO Specializations include: AWS Advanced & Consulting Partner, Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Titanium, HPE Platinum, Oracle Gold, VMware Principal

APRIL 2022

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ON THE RECORD

Prepping For The Recession And The Opportunity

I

By Robert Faletra T MAY NOT FEEL like it, but the chances of a

recession are real, they are rising, and if you wait long enough it will happen. While it seems unlikely, the signs are increasingly pointing to sooner rather than later. By that I mean within 12 to 15 months.

With the inflation rate bouncing in high single digits (7.9 percent) and understanding the government data is always lagging on this, we very well could be in low double digits.

It doesn’t feel great for workers who are demanding and receiving hefty raises but still struggling to stay even with the cost of living. This will result in a pullback in spending. And it’s consumer spending that has been driving this economy.

The unprecedented spending by the government has added to inflationary pressure. At this point, we have a GDP of $21 trillion and a deficit of more than $30.3 trillion, or $91,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. And the proposed new $5.8 trillion budget lines up against about $4 trillion in total tax receipts. Sound out of whack?

Throw in the dramatic increases in the costs of energy, food and housing and it’s no wonder the inflation rate is soaring.

The Federal Reserve of course is trying to manage and control inflation. And it is always doing so under pressure from the politicians on both sides of the aisle. It’s no wonder it is historically late in raising rates. Predicting the future, managing interest rates and getting it perfect is next to impossible.

More importantly, central banks worldwide have had to raise interest rates to combat inflation 16 times since the late 1970s and in 13 of those cases it resulted in recession. I’m old enough to remember the early 1980s when mortgage rates got as high as 18 percent following an inflation rate in 1979 of 13 percent.

Then-Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker pushed interest rates up to get inflation under control and a recession ensued.

Some economists argue the central bank needs to raise interest rates to at or above the inflation rate as Volcker did to

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wrestle it to the ground. That may or may not be true, but it’s hard to imagine we are not going to see a much more aggressive tightening of fiscal policy by the Federal Reserve. It’s just hard to see those kinds of rates not forcing a recession.

Oh, and just to add some color, when has this all occurred with a ground war in Europe raging, oil prices at historic highs, a pandemic waning but still in play, and a schizophrenic stock market?

I can’t predict the future and I’m certainly not a trained economist, but while these numbers are a little scary, they also seemingly present a sales opportunity.

Customer spending on IT products and services is largely done to meet future opportunities and challenges.

In growth markets, the spending leans toward expanding the business and capturing new opportunities. In down markets, spending often gets harder to find for obvious reasons.

But in a transitionary market where we are potentially headed into a time of cost containment and efficiency, the sales pitch needs to adjust accordingly.

Strategic service providers are most successful when helping customers stay just in front of market changes and deploying technology that provides a competitive advantage.

No market, good, bad or indifferent, lasts forever and there is enough talk already of a potential recession to have customers focusing on efficiency and automation.

Outsourcing of noncore functions to you or other third parties you recommend is going to be better received as the market changes.

It may not be a bad idea to begin having precautionary conversations with customers or at the very least to prepare your own strategy as to how you will react if the market does in fact turn recessionary. n

B A C K T A L K : Make something happen. Robert Faletra is a Founding Partner of The Channel Company. You can contact him via email at rfaletra@thechannelcompany.com.

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