Ingram Micro adds Microsoft Azure CSP to marketplace

Ingram Micro has added Microsoft Azure to its cloud marketplace, giving the distributor’s partners the option to deliver Microsoft’s consumption-based, pay-as-you-go cloud computing solution to end users.

The move gives Ingram’s resellers the ability to manage the end-to-end subscription lifecycle for services like Office 365 and Azure, Microsoft’s hybrid cloud platform, that features a combination of infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service solutions, from the one portal.

Lee Welch, general manager for cloud and software services at Ingram Micro, said the company was pleased to complement its existing Microsoft cloud offering with the addition of Azure.

"By automating the delivery of Azure and making available the necessary resources and tools for transformation, our reseller partners have the capability to accelerate their Azure CSP business and deliver greater value to their customers,” he said.  

Ingram works with ConnectWise's software suite to offer additional management and automation options to partners harnessing cloud solutions through Ingram's marketplace.

"Our partnership with ConnectWise over the past 18 months has been crucial for Ingram in really being able to enable our partners to provide structure and automation for their own business using the ConnectWise family of solutions," Welch said.

"The partnership has been a key part of our business transformation program for our resellers in moving to a true managed service model."

Greg Lalle, vice president of sales and strategy for ConnectWise, said Ingram had opened doors by including Azure CSP through its cloud marketplace.

“By leveraging Ingram Micro and ConnectWise, IT solution providers can now seamlessly manage, provision, and bill both Office 365 and Azure subscriptions. Azure truly is the most integrated and automated solution in the marketplace today, delivering tangible cost savings and increased productivity for our partners,” he said.

Ingram Micro's Cloud Marketplace consolidates vendor provided cloud services and tools in a single portal, allowing the distie's partners to access and manage those services "without the need to learn and administer multiple vendor portals to provision, manage and invoice for the different services", according to Welch.