Hitachi Data Systems Inc. has added specializations to its TrueNorth Partner Program, a move that will allow its Canadian partners to offer more services to end-users without involving HDS technicians and gain higher margins when offering solutions.
The program has been in Canada since 2000 and HDS currently has 30 TrueNorth partners here under three tiers: platinum, gold and silver.
“We had a series of install and configuration certifications based around each of our products, but there were limitations,” said Peter Kriparos, HDS channel manager in Canada. “We’ve expanded the products that partners can install and better defined specializations in each category. We’ve evolved from letting partners do install and configuration to full end-to-end application configuration.”
The Virtualization Services specialization allows partners to use Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform to extend their customers’ storage, while the Migration Services specialization allows them to use the same solution for planning and implementing data migration. With the migration certification, partners can design solutions for their customers.
The TrueNorth program will also include a File and Content Services Specialization, through which partners can create storage solutions for their customers’ unstructured data using Hitachi Content Platform enablement, NAS enablement and Hitachi Data Discovery Suite.
Also new is the Application Specialization and Vertical Solution Specialization, which will allow partners to better integrate applications from VMware, Microsoft, Symantec and Oracle into customers’ Hitachi environments as well as gain expertise in vertical markets such as health care and government. Finally, the Management Specialization is focused around Hitachi’s storage management and software framework.
Previously, HDS had various limited certifications, rather than the specializations it now offers. While partners were capable of providing some of these services with the old program, there are now greater opportunities to generate revenue, according to Bradley Brodkin, president of HighVail Systems, a Toronto-based solution provider and HDS platinum partner.
“We’ve always been a services partner,” Brodkin said, but now there’s more opportunity for higher margins. End-user customers also save by only have to deal with one partner directly.
HighVail is already an HDS Certified Solution Provider (CSP), meaning that it has been able to offer certain services but had to bring in HDS as a subcontractor for certain deals to take advantage of the companies’ products. “This will just allow us to offer a more complete solution,” Brodkin said.
“It shows us that HDS is listening to what we as partners have to say,” Brodkin said. “Until now, HDS really felt that these were critical areas that they wanted to deliver on their own,” he says.
The specializations will be available for all partners, either through an online application or by reaching out to a channel manager. “It will be based on competency with applications, specialized storage focus as an organization, and whether we need regional reach in different territories,” Kriparos said. “For partners that tend to have that type of model in place already, they’d be looking to get additional services dollars by going deeper and wider in accounts as trusted advisors.”
In most cases partners will need additional training and certification, said Kriparos. HDS has expanded training as part of the TrueNorth program and has included a help desk and call centre, along with more technical support for partners through its education portal, PartnerXchange. The Web site has also been updated to offer more support around lead generation and marketing campaigns.
Brodkin said HighVail will take advantage of this and will seek all the new specializations. “We’re very, very happy about these announcements.”
