Expanding their EMEA relationship to the U.S. and Canada gives Avnet partners here access to a backup solution well suited for the converged infrastructure space, which complements Avnet’s emphasis in this area.
Sergio Farache, vice president, Avnet Technology Solutions, Americas, Solutions and Strategy group
Avnet Technology Solutions has announced that Veeam Software will now be available to its solution provider partners in the United States and Canada. Avnet considers the addition an important one, which complements their strong emphasis on converged infrastructure solutions.
Avnet and Veeam have not previously had a relationship in North America. Avnet has however been working with Veeam in EMEA since 2009, and has been working with them in Australia and Indonesia since 2012.
“In North America, some of our partners have had access to them, but not through Avnet,” said Sergio Farache, vice president, Avnet Technology Solutions, Americas, Solutions and Strategy group. “We have had tremendous growth with them in EMEA. We think it is well suited to what we are doing here now because our expansion in the converged space now complements this offering.”
The fact that Avnet is the only Veeam distributor to carry all of Cisco, EMC, HP, NetApp and VMware gives their solutions provider partners the opportunity to develop all of Cisco UCS, FlexPod and Vblock. All of these converged infrastructure solutions include Veeam’s software technology.
“Veeam is a great product in the converged space, and we have a leadership in that space,” Farache said. “Veeam introduces several elements of value that are clearly differentiated – their deep integration with hypervisors, the fact that they are focused on the converged space, and that they include other elements like replication. They are much more than a traditional backup solution.”
Veeam’s dedication to the channel also made them a clear target for Avnet, Farache added.
The Veeam Availability Suite includes Veeam Backup & Replication, and leverages virtualization, storage, and cloud technologies. The next version, v9, is due out later this year, and Veeam has been making announcements around each new element of functionality that will be available in the new suite. So far, two announcements have been made, that it will integrate with EMC storage, including both the EMC VNX and EMC VNXe families of arrays, and that it will include advanced cloud-based VM replication capabilities. More announcements are scheduled for the summer and fall before v9 becomes generally available in the second half of the year.
“Veeam complements both our converged infrastructure and our alliances,” Farache said. “Partners can make a decent margin on it, use it to provide an end to end solution for their users, and have the opportunity to places services around it.”
