Red Hat Acquires Makara Amid Cloud Services Provider Push
It's not a traditional managed services move. But Red Hat is getting into the remote monitoring and management software market. Specifically, Red Hat has acquired Makara, which makes cloud monitoring and management software. The deal is part of Red Hat's broader Cloud Foundations push. Plus, Red Hat is hoping to line up next generation channel partners -- otherwise known as cloud services providers (CSPs).
It’s not a traditional managed services move. But Red Hat is getting into the remote monitoring and management software market. Specifically, Red Hat has acquired Makara, which makes cloud monitoring and management software. The deal is part of Red Hat’s broader Cloud Foundations push. Plus, Red Hat is hoping to line up next generation channel partners — otherwise known as cloud services providers (CSPs). MSPmentor’s sister site, The VAR Guy, has all the details.
Joe,
I don’t think Red Hat understands the SMB channel so I’d like to ask if you really think the Red Hat/Makara has potential for MSPs serving small business. Yes or no?
John,
Generally speaking I think Red Hat focuses mainly on midmarket and enterprise partners. I agree: I doubt Makara has big implications for small MSPs. But for midmarket and larger MSPs a showdown is brewing. And there are no clear winners yet. A few thoughts…
1. Open Source: Red Hat is promoting Cloud Foundations, Rackspace promotes OpenStack, Eucalyptus touts its own open source cloud… So this is a highly fragmented market.
2. Closed Source: The VMware camp, the Microsoft Windows Azure camp, the Amazon camp… lots of camps for public and private clouds. Also a highly fragmented market.
Bottom line: Midsize and large service providers want to differentiate from Microsoft and Google. But to do so in a cost-effective manner they’re going to need industry standard solutions. It hink that’s Red Hat’s strategy for Makara. But to your point, the effort will mainly target midsize and large cloud service providers. Small MSPs may wind up leveraging the platform without even knowing it, though.