NetApp names Telstra, Katana1, Intalock among top partners

NetApp has recognised its top Australian partners at its inaugural awards last week during a gala dinner at Sydney's Quay restaurant.

Winners were selected based on their success with innovation in cloud services, excellence in service delivery and delivering cost efficiencies to customers and increased turnover and improved productivity.

Telstra took home the service provider of the year award for its data fabric-as-a-service offering, as well as on-demand and modular capabilities. The services provider also took out the marketing excellence award for its adoption of NetApp's GMT program and "success in delivering outstanding customer-centric and all-encompassing marketing campaign delivering strong pipeline and revenue".

Sydney integrator Katana1 was awarded platinum reseller of the year for success in analytics and big data solutions, while Diversus Group won gold reseller of the year.

Brisbane security firm Intalock was named new partner of the year for its first-half revenue growth and "work to support NetApp by introducing new growth segments in specialist verticals".

NetApp also inducted Arrow's pre-sales solution architect Shane Ferris into its hall of fame for "his dedication to stay at the top of his technical craft and the provision of round the clock service to NetApp’s partners which has been without peer".

The full list of winners:

• Service provider of the year - Telstra
• New partner of the year - Intalock
• Platinum reseller of the year - Katana1
• Gold reseller of the year - Diversus Group
• Marketing excellence - Telstra
• Converged infrastructure excellence – Comstor
• Outstanding cloud initative – ASE IT
• Technical Excellence – Filip Zahrahdnik, VMTech
• Sales excellence – Sarah Edwards, Data#3
• Alliance partner champion – Glen Hastings, Equinix