The cloud channel has been busy. In just the past few days, Green Cloud Defense, Lemongrass, Centrilogic and vendor Zylo all have made some pretty significant announcements.

For partners, the news points to opportunities. Change is nothing if not constant in this industry; the M&A deals, provider partnership and personnel addition in this week’s cloud news roundup all stand to elevate the channel.

Green Cloud Defense Sells to 11:11 Systems

Green Cloud Defense, which only distributes through the channel, is selling to 11:11 Systems.

Partners may recall that Green Cloud Defense renamed itself from Green Cloud Technologies in early 2021 after buying Cascade Defense.

The privately held companies are not announcing the deal’s terms. But, they are talking about how Green Cloud, an IaaS provider, and 11:11 Systems, a managed infrastructure solutions provider, fit together.

Thanks to Green Cloud, New Jersey-based 11:11 Systems now gets cloud and security expertise that will encompass infrastructure, disaster recovery, managed threat detection and more. In turn, Green Cloud’s channel partners – managed service providers, value-added resellers and IT consultants – may offer 11:11’s managed network connectivity.

“We are at an inflection point in digital transformation,” said Brett Diamond, CEO of 11:11 Systems. “Customers can achieve the greatest gains by leveraging the most powerful platform to deliver managed infrastructure and automation. Green Cloud provides the cloud and security solutions that will propel this advantage for our customers and partners.”

Emil W. Henry Jr. serves as CEO of Tiger Infrastructure Partners, the private equity firm that owns 11:11 Systems. He said that adding Green Cloud gives 11:11 Systems the ability to provide “the first integrated, synchronized and automated platform delivering managed infrastructure solutions across connectivity, cloud and security services.”

The companies expect the transaction to close by the end of this year. Channel Futures caught up with Charles Houser, co-founder and executive vice president of marketing at Green Cloud, to learn more about the agreement and its impact on partners.

Green Cloud’s Charles Houser

Channel Futures: What prompted Green Cloud to sell?

Charles Houser: Simply put: timing. We have been in business for 10 years, which means we had some investors that invested almost 10 years ago. We wanted to give them a liquidity event.

Check out our slideshow above for more of our Q&A with Houser; plus, another exclusive with Lemongrass and more cloud news.