New Sungard AS Private Cloud Rounds Out Vendor’s Connected Cloud Ecosystem

More than a year after exiting bankruptcy, Sungard Availability Services has launched a new product that should help the company better survive ever-changing technology demand. Sungard AS used to focus just on disaster recovery and colocation for enterprises. That worked until hyperscale cloud came along.

Now, Sungard AS is pinning much of its hopes on what it calls its Connected Cloud ecosystem. But that portfolio lacked one piece: private cloud. That’s not the case anymore. Earlier this month, Sungard AS debuted the private cloud piece of the puzzle. It’s what it calls the “centerpiece” of Connected Cloud. (The company already offered hosted private cloud and some public, the latter through Amazon Web Services.)

Built on Dell Technologies and VMware, the new private cloud solution features fully automated recovery, flexible minimum commitments on a pay-as-you-use basis with on-demand bursting that does not change the contract. Channel partners may administer the platform on a partly or fully managed basis for enterprises.

Steven Dumbleton is director of offer management and channel strategy at Sungard AS. He said the channel can expect unique support when selling the company’s private cloud.

“Sungard AS is part of the Dell Technologies Cloud Partner Connect Program, which allows us to assist solution providers, VARs and ITOs in creating profitable business relationships with Sungard AS and accelerate their ability to deliver class-leading cloud, DRaaS and other as-a-service solutions to their customers,” he told Channel Futures.

And partners won’t have to go it alone.

The “Connected Cloud” just got more complete at Sungard AS.

“We are positioned to support a variety of partner types,” Dumbleton said. “Sungard AS can help to expand product-only and managed service sales, add as-a-service type solutions, and provide a ‘sell with’ model, to provide expertise and resources to expand the partner’s current portfolio.”

In terms of hands-on help, Sungard provides lead generation, marketing materials and funds, sales-enablement tools and training, and technical training.

“We believe the best training is on the job and our ‘sell with’ model allows … partners that find an opportunity to work directly with our team throughout the sales cycle,” Dumbleton said. “For deployment, our private cloud portal makes it very easy for the partner to configure, run and manage cloud resources, as well as run the workloads and applications for end customers.”

What Makes Sungard AS’ Private Cloud Different?

What distinguishes Sungard AS’ private cloud platform from others on the market? Much of that comes down to the company’s foundation: recovery. The vendor says its 40 years of IT capabilities mean cloud users can recover applications all the way up the stack.

Other differentiators lie in Sungard AS’ capabilities, as Dumbleton pointed out. For example, the company holds the Dell Technologies Cloud Competency. This certification verifies that Sungard AS demonstrates expert understanding of how to help customers accelerate innovation, while maintaining autonomy and control, with hybrid cloud from Dell Technologies.

In addition, Dumbleton said, Sungard AS earned the “Powered by Dell Technologies” accreditation. For channel partners – and, therefore, their customers – this means the following:

Yet there’s also that VMware component.

“Our private cloud is VMware Cloud Verified across all six sites where we offer our private cloud solution in North America, Canada and the U.K.,” Dumbleton said. “Earning this accreditation means we have followed VMware-validated designs in the development of our VMware Cloud-based services.”

Partners can, due to the opex nature of cloud, expect to earn …

… monthly recurring revenue, Dumbleton said. At the same time, they can help enterprises accelerate their move to the cloud, across different types of environments.

“This allows them to focus on achieving business goals while allowing you to drive new sales,” Dumbleton said. “The more you achieve, the greater your rewards.”

Coronavirus to Keep Fueling Cloud Demand

Overall, the focus on cloud seems smart for a post-bankruptcy Sungard AS, especially because of the business impact of COVID-19. New data from research firm IDC shows that worldwide spending on cloud services is soaring. So is spending on all the hardware, software, and professional and managed services that go into them. Outlay will surpass $1 trillion in 2024 while sustaining a double-digit compound annual growth rate of 15.7%, analysts said last week.

“Cloud in all its permutations – hardware/software/services/as a service as well as public/private/hybrid/multi/edge – will play ever greater, and even dominant, roles across the IT industry for the foreseeable future,” said Richard Villars, group vice president, Worldwide Research at IDC. “By the end of 2021, based on lessons learned in the pandemic, most enterprises will put a mechanism in place to accelerate their shift to cloud-centric digital infrastructure and application services twice as fast as before the pandemic.”

For Sungard AS and its channel partners, that should mean long-term opportunity.