Cisco Systems has announced the new Cisco Managed Services Channel Program to extend and accelerate the global development and delivery of managed services based on advanced networking technologies.

The program is designed to incent partners to deliver a wide spectrum of managed services, said the company. This global program integrates the recently enhanced Cisco Powered Program framework, enabling partners to accelerate the global development and delivery of managed services.

“Growth in the managed services market will continue to outpace IT industry growth as customers strive to reduce complexity, decrease risk and improve time to market,” said Edison Peres, vice president of worldwide channels at Cisco. “Based on a consistent, global framework, the Cisco Managed Services Channel Program will allow regional channel partners, service providers and systems integrators to more easily meet our customers’ growing demand for managed services in established and emerging markets.”

The Managed Service Partner Program gives partners tools to offer consistent services to global customers based on the customers’ business requirements. In addition, the program provides financial rewards for partners that build and sell services that utilize the network to address a customer’s business need and offers joint marketing and branding opportunities for managed service providers that deliver premium services. The program currently includes AT&T, CDW Berbee, Bell Canada, BT, Calence, Dimension Data, Getronics, NetStar, Sprint, TELUS, Verizon Business and VSNL.

The program includes three managed service program levels: Cisco Powered Managed Service, Strategic Managed Service and Legacy Managed Service. The premium Cisco Powered Managed Service level currently includes designations for connectivity, unified communications, security, mobility and data center services.

To participate in the program partners must demonstrate the required resources, systems and procedures to deploy, manage and support managed network and IT solutions in all locations for which the services are available, said Cisco. An annual assessment of the partner’s network operation center is conducted to review whether the requirements are met. In addition, the managed services sold to customers must include an SLA with a minimum term of one year.

Cisco Systems www.cisco.com