D-Link has high hopes for its cloud-based network management solution Nuclias, which is launching in Canada this month, the networking company told CDN.
Much like in Europe where the solution has been available for several months, school boards, municipalities, and other organizations with multi-site deployment needs are the target markets for the solution’s latest push into new territory. More recently, the solution was also deployed in the U.S.
“We’re going after the customer that’s paying a large license and support fee from another cloud vendor. There’s a big one in the room, namely Meraki,” said Jean-Paul McFarlane, business solutions product manager for D-Link Canada. “These customers like the cloud portion of it, but are sick of paying fees.”
At first glance the solution looks a lot like the competition’s, but D-Link is banking on the solution’s zero-touch provisioning, scalability, and pay-as-you-go model to hook partners in. McFarlane said European partners have been pleased with how easy it is to deploy Nuclias, as well as the easy-to-use interface. The launch coincides with the launch of D-Link’s new access points and switching lines later this month. Nuclias Cloud stores data on AWS infrastructure that’s based in Canada, an increasingly important point for customers handling private data.
Wes Van de Polder, D-Link’s sales director for Canada, said the internal development and launch of Nuclias has taken some people by surprise.
“A lot of people ask us if we’ve bought a company,” Van de Polder told CDN. “Cisco bought Meraki, HP bought Aruba for their cloud wireless, but D-Link built Nuclias from the ground up.”
When asked what they’re looking from partners, the answer was two-fold. Van de Polder said D-Link is targeting value-added resellers (VARs) that are looking to become managed service providers (MSPs) with an easy-to-deploy and easy-to-manage solution. Secondly, D-Link is welcoming MSPs that want to be more proactive with existing customers by gaining further insight into their networks.
“We want to make sure we provide a high end solution but also have that value price in mind,” he said.
Nuclias support staff are also based in Canada, the two executives emphasized. The Canadian branch is based out of Mississauga.
“All of our tech support and engineering is done out of this office in Mississauga,” indicated McFarlane.
While enterprise customers can use Nuclias, the SMB market is going to play a big part in the solution’s deployment.
“It’s a market we’re going after,” said Van de Polder.
