Avnet launches dedicated cloud team

Two years' research comes to fruition.

Avnet Technology Solutions is set to launch a major expansion of its cloud strategy, launching a new dedicated Avnet Cloud Solutions team.

The Cloud Solutions team will focus on off-premise cloud, to complement Avnet's existing portfolio for on-premise cloud solutions in a customer's data centre, said Tim FitzGerald, vice president of the Avnet Cloud Solutions group.

"We have the privilege of having relationships with the leading suppliers today that have been in the data centre game. Those providers have been representing virtualisation, storage, security, networking and mobility solutions for some period of time."

"We think we need to establish a strong footprint in off-premise cloud, knowing that many customer solutions are going hybrid. It's the blend of an on-premise and off-premise cloud delivery model," FitzGerald said.

Avnet Cloud Solutions will focus in seven areas: productivity and collaboration; backup and disaster recovery; test and development; security; application hosting and management; remote management and monitoring; and data center as a service.

Avnet spent two years researching what offerings to bring to solution providers, MSPs and ISVs, Fitzgerald said.

Avnet launched its CloudReady program two years ago to help solution providers get started in cloud. Avnet Cloud Solutions will build on that program, FitzGerald said.

"It's a blend of existing and new team members that have been uniquely selected because of their expertise in services and cloud and being more accustomed to annuity-based models," FitzGerald said.

"We built our strategy to leverage the scope, scale and value of individual providers that gives us best-of-breed solutions."

Attracting VARs of all types

Avnet hopes to attract companies new to cloud as well as "cloud-only" partners that have never had a traditional product-sourcing relationship with a distributor.

"At the end of the day, what we're seeing is the most successful companies in this space are those that are strategically committed to cloud. They have a burning desire to move the business to deliver cloud in the off-premises space. That's not everybody," FitzGerald said.

"This transformative impact is not going to be for everybody. As we look into the VAR community, we think there are some existing partners to see opportunities and we help them pursue the opportunity, but we also realise there will be some folks outside our family that will see our differentiation. The same is true of MSPs and ISVs that are looking for this level of strategic focus."

This article originally appeared at crn.com