Midmarket Hybrid Cloud Adoption Rises, with Microsoft Azure Tops for SMBs

… increasing productivity, lowering cost of operations, reducing risks, managing compliance needs and augmenting scalability.”

Another consideration for channel partners: “The sooner channel partners understand that the future Is hybrid, the better it is for them,” Anurag Agrawal, CEO and analyst at Techaisle, told Channel Futures.

Agrawal outlines three areas channel partners should focus on:

• Building and augmenting cloud application delivery, which includes migration of applications to hybrid cloud workloads. Azure is the platform of choice and most channel partners are already vested in Microsoft, so it should be an easy extension for them. Open source is growing in its adoption, and learning about Red Hat solutions for orchestration and automation will be a wise initiative. But not all channel partners will have the capacity or the will to move into application delivery and migration.
• Pre-packaged hybrid delivery solutions such as hybrid cloud security, hybrid DRS and many others. They are easy to understand, easy to deploy and easy to manage, adding not only margins for partners but also provide a new recurring revenue stream. Partners can work directly with vendor partners or can work through distribution, which is already configuring hybrid deployment solutions. Pre-packaged solutions will have an added advantage of building a channel partner’s own IP — a direction most partners are moving.
• Hybrid IT services is another area which includes consultative engagements consisting of architecting, deploying, supporting hybrid solutions.

“Needless to say, some of these will require an increased investment in staff training, certification to increase professional services revenue with a focus on containers (Kubernetes), microservices, open source, agile development to deliver cloud apps for customers’ customer facing apps as well as apps to support customers’ internal processes and operations. But this will be necessary for the next decade. What got channel partners here today will not be enough to get them through the next decade,” said Agrawal.