Distributor Avnet Technology Solutions (NYSE: AVT) announced new services for data centre lifecycle management for its reseller and systems integrator partners in Canada and the U.S. today.
The Avnet Data Centre Lifecycle Service program includes more than 80 services designed to integrate with a partner’s existing offerings. Areas of focus include service development, IT asset disposal and cloud computing.
“Those are all new resources available to our partner community,” said Steve Kedzior, Avnet’s vice-president and general manager of services for the Americas. “We like horizontal type services that go across industry.”
The services are built for each phase of the data centre lifecycle, including planning, acquisition, integration, deployment, management and disposal of IT assets. VAR and ISV partners can use services at any or all of these stages, he said.
“What we’re announcing here is really our set of services supporting that lifecycle,” said Kedzior. “(Avnet is) really focusing on our business partners expanding their footprint.”
Related story: Avnet launches data centre training for partners
The centre of the new program from a CIO or end user perspective is to optimize the data centre and its lifecycle, he said.
“We just look at where’s demand at the end user level,” said Kedzior. “Our core product set has always been data centre for our channel.”
The strongest adoption of the program will be among those partners who already have a services portfolio and are looking to expand or improve that, Kedzior said.
“We can accelerate that. We want to help fill gaps,” Kedzior said, whether they be technological, technical or even geographical gaps. “Some (partners) are more mature in some areas than others.”
Asset disposal is one area where some partners might face boundaries with security and compliance issues. Avnet announced new capabilities around the disposition of assets, including asset disposal, data destruction and asset remarketing at end of life.
The new program also allows access to Avnet’s service development managers; experts who work with partners throughout the sales process and help them close services deals. There’s no cost for partners to engage with Avnet’s team, but prices vary based on the scope of opportunity for the projects. Pricing for other lifecycle services will be all over the board, mainly based on customer statements of work, according to Kedzior.
Avnet also recently launched its Data Centre University training program, along with workshops around cloud training for end-users. The workshops, for example, can help partners consult with customers on how to migrate their data centres to the cloud, Kedzior said. “These all tie into the overall strategy around the data centre lifecycle.”
Follow Harmeet Singh on Twitter: @HarmeetCDN.
