I find most channel folks to be pleasantly sceptical about vendor channel hype. The typical customer is even more conservative. Tech journalists, well, it’s a bit easier to woo us with shiny things.
While CRN needs to keep a finger on the pulse to identify revolutionary solutions, it’s also imperative we aren’t distracted by pie-in-the sky technology. I’m iffy when I see press releases about wearables, the Internet of Things or anything “software defined”.
But this month’s article by Tony Yoo has helped convince me of the potential of software-defined storage. By creating an abstraction layer above the hardware, SDS may allow commodity white boxes to replace more sophisticated (and expensive) products.
While an elegant idea, the reality is more complicated. Getting the right integration of software and hardware is a fine art. The challenges with configuring software and hardware is why systems integrators exist. It’s why vendors and distributors provide partners with pre-configured reference architectures.
I have no doubt that an SDS approach will work for some customer environments. SDS will grow its footprint as the technology matures. This isn’t necessarily great news for storage resellers who rely on the margins on high-end boxes, although there should remain plenty of scope for services in a software-defined world.
In this month’s cover story, Nate Cochrane looks at another set of services – around security (read the article). Increasingly, clients want reassurances about the risk profile when outsourcing to managed service providers. This creates opportunities for the channel to tool up with skills such as pen testing, disaster recovery and incident management. Nate examines how MSPs with security credentials can get an edge. The alternative – ie, not being able to properly secure client environments – could be disastrous for customer and supplier.
There are shades of this thinking in a guest column from Ben Corbett, director of LeetGeek. He talks about the risks for MSPs who over-promise and under-deliver. Ensure you are fully prepared to meet the SLAs of that managed services contract.
Some of the panellists at our CRN Fast50 event last year made similar remarks (read our wrap-up). By outsourcing their IT services to the channel, clients expect to outsource risk. Positioning yourself as a trusted advisor might offer high returns, but client expectations can be even higher.
Steven Kiernan is editor of CRN
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