Mastering "Hardware as a Service"

VARs can’t survive on hardware margins alone. But perhaps they can make a healthy living charging a monthly fee to manage, service and support customers’ hardware.

That’s the theory behind N-able Technologies’ new partner development unit — which helps VARs and MSPs to develop hardware-as-a-service (HaaS) practices. The unit shows partners how much time and money they’ll need to invest to deliver HaaS. N-able also shows VARs a step-by-step chronology of a typical HaaS engagement.

Some skeptics think managed services for VARs is a passing trend. But anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise. The VAR Guy hears more than 250 VARs attended an N-able partner summit in Los Angeles last week.

Meanwhile, there’s growing buzz for “Infrastructure as a Service” (IaaS).  One startup, called BlueLock, has invested $5 million to deliver managed hosting through IaaS. BlueLock claims its hosted IT environments are pre-configured to comply with ISO, Payment Card Industry (PCI), COBIT, Sarbanes Oxley (SOX), FDA 21CFR11 and HIPAA. BlueLock has beta deployments  underway. The VAR Guy hopes to hear who they’re going.