Q & A
EDITOR ’ S
The enterprise storage market , while being disrupted , is seeing much of the same . For example , many customers are throwing out their enterprise centralised storage landscape and converged infrastructure storage investments . Conversely , there is surprisingly a drive to enterprise server-based storage , even from a footprint perspective . There is also a move to software-defined storage and infrastructure , of which storage is a part . In short , what we can conclude from this is that customers are moving towards a more integrated form of storage in the market .
TUNDE ABAGUN , CHANNEL SALES MANAGER SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA , NUTANIX
Business innovation is being driven by innovation in applications and data . Therefore , resellers should be focused on technologies that help them harness their client ’ s data . They need to stop thinking of the storage layer as a silo but rather as an essential aspect that supports a customer ’ s data layer alongside their application layer . Resellers should also be aligning themselves to technologies that streamline storage architectures in terms of unified storage .
Resellers need to maximise their storage opportunity within a customer footprint and focus more on overarching or unified storage technologies . And when I say that , I mean storage technologies that are not siloed and allow enterprises to innovate with applications , knowing that each application typically requires a different kind of storage .
Today , resellers are still under the mercy of the global supply chain issues and chip shortages . They can make a difference today because they can help customers be more efficient with their current installed base and server network footprint and maximise current infrastructure investments while leveraging tools that help to claw back networking and storage waste .
By adequately mapping the right storage provision to the right application and mapping the right applications to the right provision of compute – customers can eliminate inefficiencies in terms of infrastructure resource consumption within their environments .
Channel partners can also help their customers unearth the value of fractional
Resellers should be focused on technologies that help them harness their client ’ s data .
Infrastructure consumption as a way of optimising storage deployments .
Traditionally , even in Africa , there is a shortage of skills . The more silos you have in your environment , the more complexity you have and , therefore , the more niche specialists you require to manage and maintain that environment to gain value from it . Historically , we have advised customers , enterprises , or the industry at large to adopt simpler technologies .
Channel partners should tackle the skills challenge by offering fewer complex solutions . Instead , they should provide solutions that eliminate silos and support software-defined technologies that require software knowledge and software expertise .
Building skills around business outcomes , for instance , around infrastructure modernisation or application automation and lifecycle management , Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery , will assist in maximising a partner ’ s RoI from each of these skills . It also ensures that their human resources can deliver specific business outcomes that are being sought after while not being bogged down with the niche specialisations . •
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS 53