Wipro, Navisite, 2nd Watch Bolster Cloud Service Portfolios

Channel partners are busy getting more cloud services into the enterprise. It should come as no surprise that this activity has increased as the coronavirus pandemic has stuck around worldwide.

Channel Futures recently looked at three partners – Accenture, 2nd Watch and ClearScale – that have bolstered their practices as enterprises move to the cloud at unprecedented rates. This week, we bring you three more (well, two more, really, as 2^nd Watch makes another appearance here) cloud partners making strategic moves. The news comes as organizations continue to require assistance transitioning into the cloud. They also need help managing the resulting resources and keeping access to legacy capabilities intact.

Wipro Expands Its IBM Hybrid Cloud Practice

Global channel partner Wipro has expanded its internal IBM Hybrid Cloud Practice, launched in June. As a result, the technology consultancy will team with technical experts from IBM to help customers with digital transformation. They will use IBM Cloud Paks and Red Hat OpenShift.

The news comes as Wipro has joined forces with IBM Cloud for Telecommunications. That effort aims to give telecom operators open, hybrid cloud architecture for making the most of 5G and edge opportunities.

Within its IBM Hybrid Cloud Practice unit, Wipro will use its management platform that lets enterprises run cloud-native applications from anywhere. Wipro built that interface on IBM technology. Wipro also will rely on its software built with IBM Cloud Pak for Applications. Incidentally, IBM just upgraded some of its Cloud Paks for better data management and improved artificial intelligence.

Bhanuamurthy B.M. is president and COO of Wipro.

Wipro’s Bhanumurthy B.M.

“We believe the future will be driven by hybrid cloud; hence, the expansion of IBM Hybrid cloud practice is intrinsic to our strategy,” said Bhanumurthy. “It will strengthen our relationship with IBM and help accelerate our clients’ transformation journey across hybrid cloud environments.”

IBM, too, is ramping up its hybrid cloud efforts. Big Blue is investing $1 billion in areas including the indirect channel.

Navisite Buys Longtime SAP Systems Integrator

Navisite, an IT channel partner offering managed cloud services to enterprises, has wrapped its purchase of a premier SAP gold partner.

Last week, Navisite said it has acquired Dickinson + Associates, a longtime SAP systems integrator in Chicago. The deal beefs up Navisite’s SAP managed cloud practice, adding business application and platform expertise. It further gives end users more options for migrating to the cloud with legacy software intact.

Mark Clayman, CEO of Navisite, told Channel Futures the Dickinson transaction can be a template for other partners to follow.

Navisite’s Mark Clayman

“The companies we serve in the midmarket need a partner who not only brings the deep expertise, global presence and broad capabilities they need to navigate their most complex IT transformations, but who can also help them quickly pivot to solve more urgent, near-term IT challenges,” he said. “We’ve remained focused on being a partner who is right-sized for their needs. This not only means continuing to acquire and build out highly specialized areas of expertise, but from an organizational standpoint, being flexible in how we operate, and adjust and scale our services.”

Earlier this year, Navisite also snapped up Privo, a premier consulting partner for Amazon Web Services.

Navisite did not disclose the terms of either purchase.

2^nd Watch Addresses Cloud Allocation, Spend Problems with Spot by NetApp

2nd Watch has teamed with Spot by NetApp to give enterprise IT more power to allocate cloud resources and oversee cloud spend.

The managed cloud services provider has created the 2^nd Watch Spot Instance and Containerization service. The channel partner says cloud sprawl, shadow IT, improper resource allocation and a lack of …

… efficient resource use all are culminating in higher costs. Partnering with Spot by NetApp will help solve the problems, according to 2^nd Watch.

The service works by recommending workloads that can take advantage of the cost savings associated with running instances, VMs and containers on “spot” resources. A spot resource is an unused cloud resource available for sale in a marketplace for less than the on-demand price. Users can reduce cloud computing costs, often by significant amounts. That’s because spot resources enable users to request unused EC2 instances or VMs to run their workloads at steep discounts. To deliver its service, 2^nd Watch has partnered with Spot. Spot’s cloud automation and optimization solutions help companies maximize return on their cloud investments.

2nd Watch’s Kris Garvey

“Early on, spot resources were difficult to manage,” said said Chris Garvey, executive vice president of product at 2^nd Watch. “But the tasks associated with managing them can now be automated, making the use of spot a smart approach to curbing cloud costs. Typically, non-mission-critical workloads such as development and staging have been able to take advantage of the cost savings of spot instances.”

However, he added, combining 2^nd Watch’s professional and managed cloud services with Spot by NetApp has allowed it to “help companies use spot resources to run production environments.”

Amiram Shachar, vice president and general manager of Spot by NetApp, agreed.

Spot’s Amiram Shachar

“Working together, we’re helping organizations go beyond one-off optimization projects to instead ensure continuous optimization of their cloud environment using Spot’s unique technology,” Shachar said. “With this new offering, 2nd Watch demonstrates a keen understanding of this critical customer need and is leveraging the best technology in the market to address it.”

2^nd Watch also recently debuted its Hybrid Cloud Solutions With Anthos platform. The Seattle-based company works with AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure.