Ingram Micro’s Promark Now Distributing Platform9’s Kubernetes, OpenStack Services

Platform9 aims to dramatically grow its managed Kubernetes and OpenStack sales and services now that it has signed a distribution deal with Promark, which is a subsidiary of distributor powerhouse Ingram Micro.

Under the deal, Platform9’s Managed Kubernetes (PMK) and Managed OpenStack (PMO) products will gain access to Promark’s wide range of VARs and other channel partners in the U.S. to help the company expand its market around the globe, the companies said.

Kamesh Pemmaraju, Platform9’s head of product marketing, told Channel Futures that one of the largest benefits of the new distribution deal will be that Promark’s wide market presence and power will help make his company’s products more recognizable in a busy IT marketplace.

Platform9’s Kamesh Pemmaraju

“People don’t know about us,” said Pemmaraju. “We have a very compelling solution but customers don’t know we exist … they try to build this on their own and find it hard to do.”

The Promark distribution deal will help reverse that trend, he said.

“So this partnership will help us be found by customers. It gives us awareness in the market that we are going after. It is getting our message out to more and more customers who are out there and struggling” with their Kubernetes and other deployments, he said.

“We’re providing an easy button for Kubernetes deployments,” said Pemmaraju. “Everyone else is trying to build it themselves and finding out that it’s way too complex.”

The deal will also will give Platform9 and its managed services access to Promark’s broad ecosystem of training, marketing, services and more, he said.

“We have been working on trying to amplify our partner ecosystem for a while,” he said. “Then Promark asked us about this and we talked with them about it. They were looking for products.”

Now the Promark team is being trained in Platform9’s products and VARs are coming on board, he added. The products are available through Promark immediately and the first training sessions are starting next week.

“We are ready to go,” said Pemmaraju.

Platform9’s managed Kubernetes deployments can be anywhere customers want to use them, including public cloud, hybrid cloud, private cloud, on premises or as a service. The company’s managed OpenStack services allow users to go live with OpenStack private cloud in minutes, while taking care of the entire OpenStack life cycle for users, according to the company.

Jeffrey Brown, the president and general manager of Promark Technology, told Channel Futures that the deal was made to help his company’s partners and customers as well.

Promark’s Jeffrey Brown

“Our channel partners and resellers look up to us for new born-in-the-cloud technologies,” said Brown. “Many organizations search for efficient and affordable ways to implement a hybrid cloud strategy and our partners are there to help them with this mission. Platform9’s managed Kubernetes platform provides a fully automated solution to tackle the challenges of hybrid cloud environments and guide end users through this journey.”

The Platform9 products will help Promark’s channel partners and their customers because they combine a spectrum of needed services and technologies in one package and a solid team to support it, said Brown.

“Customers in the cloud era would like to achieve automation, simplicity, rapid deployment of services, efficiency and cost savings. Platform9, a market leader in managed Kubernetes, offers all that and more,” Brown said.

Tony Iams, an IT analyst with Gartner, said the deal is a good one for both companies.

“As the use of Kubernetes proliferates, organizations that lack the engineering resources to deploy and maintain Kubernetes clusters seek out managed service providers such as Platform9 to automate management of container systems on-premises or in public clouds,” said Iams. “By leveraging Platform9’s PMK SaaS offering, Promark will make Kubernetes available to a wider base of mainstream users.”