Virtualisation has reached a point where it has progressed beyond the server level and is now being applied to the storage and networking layers. In some of the more ambitious scenarios, it’s even advanced to the software defined data centre. Where compute virtualisation has spawned a natural progression to other elements of the data centre stack, the emergence of cloud has also served to expand the acceptance of virtualisation or abstraction beyond the confines of the on-premise data centre to other locations. Everything can be virtualised. The question is whether there is a credible role for channel partners in the process of virtualisation that is likely to be unleashed on all the other elements of the data centre.
Following on from VMworld Europe in Barcelona last month, we asked a number of industry figures to outline the latest developments in the virtualisation market that were most relevant to the channel and identify the hot spots for customers and the opportunities/threats they present for partners. How can they make the most of those opportunities? Which vendors are the best bets for channel partners to align with? And what can distributors do to help partners in the virtualisation space?
Francis O’Haire, Data Solutions
Francis O’Haire, director of technology & strategy, Data Solutions
While vSphere is still the most prominent hypervisor, O’Haire says more and more customers are “treating that level of virtualisation as commodity”. Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is “starting to really take hold in Ireland”, he notes. Now that legacy vendors such as HPE, Lenovo and Dell are embracing HCI, customers are becoming more comfortable with the technology because “they’re not seeing it as bleeding edge any more, it’s becoming the norm”.
It’s true that the market is more competitive because the legacy vendors are adopting HIC “but we’ll take that with the fact that it also creates a larger market”. If HCI was just confined to the likes of Nutanix, it would be hard to convince customers to take a risk against the legacy vendors. But now the larger vendors have adopted it, customers are more comfortable with the technology. “Nutanix isn’t alone in banging the drum anymore,” O’Haire explains. Now that HCI has a place at the table, Nutanix can compete against the likes of Dell, Lenovo and HPE because they are competing on its terms.
For example, just how committed are the legacy vendors to HCI if it ends up cannibalising their existing storage business? “They’re promoting the fact they supporting and selling HCI but they’re also cannibalising their legacy storage business, so you have to wonder if they’re fully committed,” he says. With Nutanix, partners “have something unique they can bring to the table and know they’re not going to be competing with the vendor. And if you look at products side by side, someone buying from the inventor of the technology has a smoother ride because they’re not stuck in the middle between the software layer and hardware layer.”
Security in a highly virtualised environment is another area of interest. “Server virtualisation has run its course and it has exposed limitations in other areas,” O’Haire remarks. Customers are looking to deploy security solutions capable of dealing with the complexities of virtualisation where people are moving VMs and spinning them up in the cloud, so products have to add value on top of virtualisation but also on what they’re doing in the cloud as well. The products we’re looking at have to address the hybrid world.”
So what about the ‘software defined’ trend which has been talked about so much in recent times? Now that virtualisation has delivered software defined compute, how far along are organisations with the move to software defined storage, software defined networking (SDN) and the software defined data centre? The answer is not quite. “In terms of networking, we’re getting there but I don’t think many customers using are SDN on premise other than service providers. Automating and virtualising the network layer for the average enterprise is not there yet.”
Instead, he identifies SDWAN, which takes all WAN technologies, creates an overlay network on top and bundles all the technologies together, as an area that is garnering interest. “If you’re moving to the cloud then your connection to the cloud becomes absolutely critical. SDWAN allows you to spend as much as is appropriate on a reliable network and allows you to have a resilient connection to your cloud provider.”
Justin Sutton-Parker, Citrix
Justin Sutton-Parker, Citrix partner director, Northern Europe
The first thing to note is that partners are enjoying good growth this year. Cloud service providers are doing particularly well, as are partners that moved from the VAR model to include managed services and offer them with hybrid or bi-modal cloud. Born in the cloud service providers are “doing incredibly well because there’s a lot of demand for secure workspaces at the moment”, Sutton-Parker adds. As evidence for that demand, he points to a recent Gartner event on secured workspaces which had 700 attendees.
Security is another big issue, particularly with cloud. “Everybody is talking about security. Everybody wants to be able to have mobility, BYOD and work anywhere but the point is they want to work securely,” he says. “That’s one area where Citrix comes forward because we have the products that do the job. We can give customers a very secure environment. People talk about digital workspaces, but it’s more about secure digital workspaces.”
Many customers see the benefit of cloud in terms of cost savings, agility and scaling “but the transformation to cloud must be planned properly. There are many options available out there across the hybrid side. There’s a steep learning curve. That’s why we see so many people at events because they’re absorbing knowledge. Partners that have already created managed services can lead with a consultative sales approach because customers need to be reassured that it is the right thing for them”.
For Citrix distributors, the days of buying and selling products and providing credit has changed. “Now, it’s about the ability to scale up of cloud platforms among certain distributors, so they can aggregate and white label them to partners. Citrix cloud is a new thing for them but while there’s been a change, I wouldn’t say it’s been overly complex. There’s a lot of pay per use licensing happening now. And there’s not much physical touch. There’s an understanding that things have moved towards a service rather than a physical product”.
In any case, Citrix’s distributors in the UK and Ireland are “enterprise solution led partners, they’re not stack it high and sell it quickly, so it’s been a little bit easier for them”.
Sutton-Parker stresses that Ireland is “a huge focus area” for Citrix. “The Irish market has become quite buoyant again and we see Ireland as an incredible business market in itself. It’s a good market for us and we do very well in Ireland.”
Aidan McEvoy, Zinopy
Aidan McEvoy, sales director, Zinopy
McEvoy says that digital business transformation (DBT) is driving real-time data collection, automation and analytics at an unprecedented rate to deal with business demands around security, compliance, productivity and efficiency: “Virtualisation solutions and services are being created to take advantage of these drivers.”
In the compliance space, GDPR is sparking interest in workspace virtualisation as a desktop centralisation model to solve data security and compliance challenges in relation to end points. The change in Microsoft licensing earlier this year to allow Windows 10 consumption in the cloud as a production-based virtual desktop is also helping drive new customers towards workspace virtualisation or VDI as a service.
McEvoy believes that the core benefits for customers around virtualisation – improved security, compliance, productivity and efficacy – have never changed “but their order has”. Today, security and compliance are the dominant concerns. The good news is that “the opportunity to partner has never been more relevant or more needed to guide customers on the journey ahead. Digital Transformation has become a byword to describe that journey – and for most, it involves a journey towards the cloud”.
Things are easier for businesses with less legacy baggage, but for most companies it requires care and attention. Helping to build a hybrid environment “is one of the biggest challenges and opportunities facing the market,” he argues. “A deep understanding of how to integrate security and infrastructure services in a hybrid environment that meets business demands is essential to partners that want to build a successful practice over the next five years.”
The greatest challenge for channel partners is ensuring “they are ready to take advantage of what is expected to be a time of great change over the coming five years”. This will require a better understanding of the business drivers facing customers and how to align technology solutions and services to meet those needs.
David Fearne, Arrow ECS
David Fearne, technical director, UK&I, Arrow ECS
The latest developments in virtualisation are a continuation of the journey towards defining everything in software, Fearne states. Everyone knows and appreciates the benefits compute virtualisation brought to the data centre and businesses in general. That hardware abstraction model is now being adopted in networking, storage and security. Once these key components are constructed in software, data centre infrastructures can easily be automated and orchestrated without much human intervention.
He believes it is important for channel partners “to become experts in this new software defined landscape and to educate their customers about the immense benefits an automated, agile and very responsive infrastructure can bring to their organisations. Simply selling lots of hardware or a single vendor configuration with implementation services is not going to sustain long-term growth – the channel is now embracing this shift in technology and their customers are seeing the benefits”.
As for distributors, they provide domain expertise across the whole software-defined enterprise, giving insight into how to mix, match and incorporate software-defined solutions. “They know where to place the chalk mark and can enable the channel to do the same for their customers,” he says. “And it really is getting harder to know where that pain point is – especially as we witness the proliferation of IoT and machine-to-machine components creep into the home, the enterprise and businesses in general.”
In terms of the vendors leading the change to the software defined world, Fearne doesn’t name names but he says the ones that will flourish don’t just pay lip service to the concept but deliver truly easy-to-deploy, uncomplicated, artificially intelligent, API-based versions of their ‘secret sauces’.
Michael Jackson, Tech Data
Michael Jackson, general manager, Tech Data Ireland
Virtualisation is still a big opportunity, but the discussion has shifted focus to hybrid infrastructures and how on-premise and off-premise public cloud resources can be used and managed effectively and securely, Jackson observes. Either way, virtualisation is an important enabling technology.
Like McEvoy, he see a lot of focus on digital transformation and how organisations can adopt more responsive, seamless and integrated processes across new hybrid infrastructures. Most enterprise and mid-market companies need guidance and support on just about every element of DX and hybrid – and virtualisation is important as a key technology that enables more efficient and scalable data centres and infrastructures.
Tech Data can provide resellers with the ability to access and deploy all the key vendors’ technologies in this area through partnerships with VMware, Microsoft and Citrix, along with ecosystems vendors, such as Veeam, Veritas and Nutanix. “We have the technical and sales knowledge, training, professional services and cloud aggregation resources to support every aspect of virtualisation – in the data centre, on the desktop and right across the hybrid environment,” Jackson claims.
Distributors like Tech Data can help resellers engage with vendor technologies and programmes and support them on configuration and implementation.
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