Veeam is emphasizing that partners not in the cloud need to develop a cloud option for their customers, and opened their VeeamON event by announcing a simple-to-use portal to help partners develop a service provider practice.
Job screen in the portal
LAS VEGAS: At the keynote of its Partner Day kicking off its second annual VeeamON event, Veeam emphasized to its partners – who are their entire sales force – the importance of moving into the cloud. They then announced a tool, Veeam Managed Backup Portal for Service Providers, to help them do so. Available through the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, the portal provides a relatively simple way for partners to quickly establish themselves as a service provider for their customers.
“The cloud has grown 50 per cent in the last year compared to a few per cent for on-prem,” said Ratmir Timashev, CEO at Veeam, to the partners. “You need to have more cloud services, and Veeam is here to help you.”
To that end, Timashev made a new product announcement from the stage, stressing that the Managed Backup Portal provided an opportunity for partners not already offering a Veeam solution through the cloud to do so.
“Veeam Managed Backup Portal for Service Providers is designed for partners to start opening additional backup and disaster recovery services,” he said. “It deploys easily, handling billing and monitoring through a multi-tenant portal.”
Timashev then introduced Mike Resseler, EMEA Evangelist for Veeam, who gave partners a demo of the new product.
“The Backup Portal has been developed to help you become a service provider,” Resseler told the audience. “It is the easiest way for Veeam partners and resellers to start a new business. For those of you who aren’t in cloud, you can be up in a matter of minutes, with no real investment. This is a ‘business in a box.’”
The Billing screen
The ‘business-in-a-box’ includes remote monitoring and management of customer backups through a service provider portal for administrative and billing purposes, and a customer portal for basic self-service monitoring and configuration.
“Integrating billing isn’t easy, but with our out-of-the-box billing system, its simple and you can start billing from the very first minute,” Resseler said. He indicated the portal is also extremely easy for partners to rebrand.
Onboarding is also made easier by Veeam Managed Backup Portal for Service Providers’ integration with Veeam Cloud Connect.
“The easy onboarding and out-of-the box billing are designed to simplify your first steps into the cloud, and monetize your knowledge of Veeam,” Resseler told the partners.
Ressler also stressed that the operation of the portal is also extremely simple for the partner, Daily monitoring and management of customers’ jobs is accomplished through a single port over SSL/TLS.
“Assisting customers remotely has never been easier,” he said. “It is a single pane of glass, and you don’t need a VPN at all.”
‘This new portal will provide opportunities for small and midsize and even enterprise-focused partners that they haven’t had before, said Chris Henley, a Microsoft IT Professional Evangelist at Veeam who hosted the keynote session.
Veeam Managed Backup Portal for Service Providers will be generally available during Q1 2016. Pricing has not yet been set.
Initially, it will only be available through the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.
“We will decide on the capability of expanding it beyond Azure based on demand,” said Doug Hazelman, Veeam’s VP of Product Strategy. “We will wait and see where that takes us.”
