Tech Data Launches Cloud Solutions Factory to Ease Digital Transformation

Tech Data wants to simplify digital transformation, and so do vendors, which drove the launch of the distributor’s Cloud Solutions Factory.

It’s a global portfolio of end-to-end cloud, validated and pre-integrated solutions designed to speed time to market, reduce the complexity, costs and risk associated with cloud deployments. The packaged offers, called click-to-run solutions, deliver specific business outcomes ranging from core infrastructure and data protection, to the internet of things (IoT) and analytics. The Cloud Solutions Factory kicks off with solutions from ecosystem partners including Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Red Hat, NetApp, Veeam, Autodesk, among others.

This is just the beginning; there are other vendors in the pipeline, the company said in announcing the Cloud Solutions Factory on Wednesday.

Tech Data’s Sergio Farache

“In launching Cloud Solutions Factory, our focus has been on enabling our partners to deliver business outcomes with solutions that are immediately ready to deploy,” said Sergio Farache, senior vice president, strategy, innovation, cloud and M&A, at Tech Data. “Cloud-solution design and implementation can be a complex and lengthy process, so all our offerings are preconfigured, validated and tested, and deployments are monitored by Tech Data. The result is a suite of reliable solutions that help our partners reduce costs, maximize efficiency and drive competitive differentiation.”

Partners will find the new Cloud Solutions Factory portfolio on the Tech Data StreamOne Cloud Marketplace. The targeted bundled solutions are offered on a pay-per-use basis.

Businesses increasingly are moving workloads to the cloud. IDC recently reported that in the third quarter of 2018, for the first time, vendor revenues from IT infrastructure product sales into cloud environments surpassed revenues from sales into traditional IT environments, accounting for 51 percent of total worldwide IT infrastructure vendor revenues, up from less than 44 percent a year ago.

“The first three quarters of 2018 were exceptional for the IT Infrastructure market across all deployment environments and the increase in IT infrastructure investments by public cloud data centers was especially strong, driven by the opening of new data centers and infrastructure refresh in existing data centers,” said Natalya Yezhkova, research director, IT infrastructure and platforms at IDC. “After such a strong year, we expect some slowdown in 2019 as the overall market cools down and some cloud providers work through adjustments in their supply chain. However, IDC expects the shift in IT infrastructure spending toward cloud environments will continue.”

Pre-architected solutions from Tech Data’s Cloud Solutions Foundry include the fundamentals for compute, storage and network in the cloud. They’re organized by solution practices and align to workloads that are in demand by businesses today. According to Tech Data, partners will find a range of IT and business solutions practices. These are created by integrating licenses, services and third-party components, and include core infrastructure, application innovation and data protection.

The initial set of solutions, designed for multicloud, are available in Microsoft’s Azure cloud. There are other pilots in the works.

Tech Data says the tools and architecture that have enabled the construction and release of these new solutions are the cumulative result of in-house research and development, as well as key intellectual property acquired over the last few years. The Cloud Solutions Factory concept has been in development for more than a year. The solutions that the distributor is announcing, and all the supporting materials, are produced quarterly.

The distributor will offer partners materials for enablement, such as promotional collateral, battle cards and so on, to help them adopt and promote the solutions. In addition, partners may benefit from Tech Data’s Cloud Practice Builder program to expand and complement their non-technical and technical skills.