INDUSTRY VIEW
THE FUTURE OF THE CHANNEL
LISA STRYDOM , SENIOR MANAGER : CHANNEL AND ALLIANCES FOR AFRICA , VEEAM AFRICA
With the recent industry shifts in hybrid work strategy and exponential growth in cloud operations , the channel must adapt in order to remain competitive in the future . As the marketplace is changing constantly , it is imperative that software vendor channel partners come up with new ways of doing business in order to stay competitive and meet their customers ’ needs . Lisa Strydom , Senior Manager : Channel and Alliances for Africa , Veeam Africa , outlines how Veeam has established itself as a channel-only company to meet the needs for modern data security , with the partnering ecosystem which includes dependable service providers , resellers , distributors , and alliance partners .
It ’ s no secret that the pandemic has seen local companies embrace a hybrid work strategy . This has also had consequences for the channel , with many vendors experiencing growth in their cloud business as more organisations consume as-a-Service offerings to remain operational .
However , it is not an all-or-nothing scenario . Companies still want on-premises solutions while leveraging cloud initiatives to drive things like Backup-as-a-Service ( BaaS ) and Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service ( DRaaS ). As a result , the channel has been moving in this direction , transitioning from predominantly on-premises offerings back in the early 2000s to including a diverse portfolio of cloud services as well .
With year-on- year market forecasts for software in SA at 11.2 % and global SaaS at 21.7 %, we are seeing tremendous business growth and opportunities in the channel .
What has given further impetus is the concept of the 3-2-1-1-0 rule . This requires an organisation to maintain at least three copies of its data , on two different media , with at least one copy stored at an offsite location , one copy offline , air-gapped or immutable , and all backups being verified as containing zero errors . Requiring a business continuity value proposition beyond on-premises means partners are working with local cloud services providers ( CSPs ). So , instead of investing in building their own data centres they can provide white label cloud solutions using the expertise of the service provider . An example of this can be found in the Veeam Reseller Ready Programme .
Turning to the cloud
Certainly , the cloud is enabling companies to deploy modern data protection , a business resilience strategy that involves secure backup , restore and data management . According to the Veeam Data Protection Trends Report 2022 , 67 % of South African companies are already using cloud services as part of their data protection strategy . Furthermore , 51 % of companies ’ data infrastructure is currently located in the data centre , with 49 % now hosted in the cloud .
It stands to reason then , that almost a quarter ( 23 %) of local businesses rated the ability to protect cloud-hosted workloads as the most important buying factor for enterprise data protection this year . Just under a third ( 28 %) believe that infrastructure-as-a-service ( IaaS ) and Software-as-a-Service ( SaaS ) capabilities are definitive attributes of modern data protection .
16 www . intelligenttechchannels . com