IBM Launches New Enterprise Data Center Business Partner Skills Program
IBM announced that it will develop a new Business Partner program to expand support for best practices and skills that will help clients move to new enterprise data centers, which are dramatically more energy efficient, virtualized, secure and resilient.
This new program, part of IBM’s company-wide new enterprise data center strategy, enables partners to specialize in supporting technologies and capabilities in what is claimed to be a major growth market for the IT industry.
The program – targeted at customer facing Business Partners – includes solution specialties with certification in technologies and practices that are central to a new enterprise data center, including consolidation and virtualization, green/energy efficiency, business resiliency and security. It will include two levels, with the higher level designed for Business Partners that make a significant commitment to skills and capabilities for IBM’s new enterprise data center strategy.
The program will provide new enterprise data center-specific marketing and sales benefits for partners that achieve specialization, such as co-marketing benefits, assistance with education, enhanced margin opportunities, pre-sales assessment funding, pre-sales technical assistance, and an emblem program.
In addition, IBM Business Partners that achieve specialization will be able to perform client assessments in areas critical to developing new enterprise data centers, including business resiliency, virtualization, and consolidation. For example, IBM’s certified partners will have the ability to measure the energy consumption of a data center before and after projects to allow clients to measure progress and claim subsequent energy efficiency certificates. Partners also have the ability to develop higher margin client proposals.
"IBM’s vision for the new enterprise data center leverages best practices and technologies to deliver more computing power while reducing costs and maintaining availability," said Patrick Giangrosso, Eaton, Director, Global Accounts. "Eaton is thrilled to collaborate with IBM in developing and delivering solutions that advance IBM’s energy efficiency initiative."
"Proactive data center infrastructure management is just as critical as the technologies that are being monitored," said Charles O’Donnell, Vice President of Monitoring and Professional Services, Emerson Network Power. "When it comes to maximizing the business value that a reliable and efficient data center can provide, real-time and ongoing visibility into the performance and health of the IT equipment and its support system becomes a competitive advantage. Organizations can’t improve what they don’t measure. Integration of Liebert SiteScan with Active Energy Manager simplifies this management and opens the door to additional user benefits via combined solutions from Emerson Network Power and IBM."
