Big Switch Program Aims to Increase Adoption of Next-Gen Data Center Networking

Edward Gately

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Data center networking company Big Switch Networks Wednesday launched its two-tiered Channel Partner Program, designed to help the company continue growing and expanding into new markets and regions all over the world.

The program will offer partners incentives, in-depth training, certification and enablement programs, as well as professional services opportunities. Through this program, Big Switch will address strategic objectives for its channel partners, including training and enablement for the company’s product portfolio.

Big Switch’s Susheel Chitre

Susheel Chitre, Big Switch’s vice president of business development, tells Channel Partners this is his company‘s first formal partner program. Prior to building this program, it provided partners with a reseller agreement that authorized them to sell Big Switch products.

“As market adoption of open networking accelerates, Big Switch has experienced a significant increase in the interest from channel partners looking to bring next-generation networking solutions to their customers, which also means partners are looking to receive formal training and to participate in certification programs with Big Switch products, as well as access to labs and incentives,” he said. “The best way for us to do this is with a formal partner program.”

The two program tiers are Authorized Partner and Premier Partner. Partners are eligible for Authorized if they are an authorized networking reseller of either Dell EMC or Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE), or by signing a Big Switch VAR agreement for selling Edgecore Networks + Big Switch solutions. Requirements are minimal to encourage interested VARs to get familiar with Big Switch’s next-generation offerings, the company said

Premier is open to all partners who have met the Authorized tier requirements and meet the additional Premier tier requirements, which include: a defined number of partner sales and engineering employees who are trained and certified on Big Switch offerings; hosted demo labs in partner environments for ongoing training and customer demos; and meeting quarterly minimum requirements for deal registrations and deals closed. Partners who meet the Premier requirements are eligible for benefits including rebates, marketing support and qualified leads.

“What has been lacking for partners is a formal, programmatic way to receive training with our products so they are able to build solutions and services to help their customers transition to the next-generation of networking built with Big Cloud Fabric or Big Monitoring Fabric,” Chitre said. “The partner program eliminates the barriers that partners previously faced in having readily available access to …

… formal training and certification on the products, as well as access to demo labs and licenses, and at the same time being rewarded for their investments with recurring revenue opportunities and back-end incentives.”

Big Switch’s products are always sold as part of an offering that includes open networking switches from one of its switching partners (Dell EMC, Edgecore or HPE).

“As a longtime partner of Big Switch, we are pleased to be part of its global channel partner program, which enables us to provide customers with intelligent, open networking solutions that offer our customers a next-gen, flexible infrastructure aligned to support their operational requirements,” said Youngcor Shueh, Edgecore’s vice president of sales. “Edgecore Networks’ Ethernet hardware switches, together with Big Switch Networks’ Big Cloud Fabric or Big Monitoring Fabric, provide customers with complete SDN solutions that reduce capital and operating costs while enabling more rapid provisioning of new applications and capacity.”