5 Channel Partner Updates: 27 February 2017 -

Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Monday, February 27, 2017. Actually, there are 24 snack-sized updates for VARs, managed services providers (MSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs), independent software vendors (ISVs), telco master agents and telco agents to sip on. Take a look… 24. Digital Business Transformation: Keep an eye on DXagents, a "digital transformation accelerator" in Canada that features such organizations as Deloitte, SAP, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Intel, SUSE, CIO Association of Canada (CIOCAN), Financial Executives International Canada (FEI Canada), TDWI and B2B News Network . DXagents is "dedicated to helping Canadian businesses better understand and get on the path to realizing their digital transformation opportunities." I'm not a fan of the "digital transformation" term, but we'll be watching to see whether the accelerator truly helps businesses go digital. 23. Spam Filtering: Cartika, an MSP and IaaS cloud provider, has launched SPAM-filtering-as-a-service platform.We're checking to see if a third-party anti-spam service is involved... 22. Network Security Assessments: Portland Europe has agreed to distribute RapidFire Tools Inc.'s Network Detective to the Benelux marketplace. RapidFire's software allows VARs and MSPs to perform network, security and storage assessments. 21. Big DDoS Attacks Pending?: Necurs, the world's largest spam botnet with nearly 5 million infected bots, of which one million active each day, has added a new module that can be used for launching DDoS attacks, according to BleepingComputer. The new functionality is a bit like upgrading existing missile silos to carry additional payloads to flatten unsuspecting targets... 20. Governors Discuss Cybersecurity: Governors from states across the country put the spotlight on cybersecurity at an annual gathering in Washington on Saturday, The Hill reported. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) hosted a session at the National Governors Association winter meeting to discuss the “serious cybersecurity issues” facing the nation and how states need to improve their defenses against cyber threats, the report noted. Come to think of it... whatever happened to President Trump's Executive Order on Cyber Security? Hmmm...

19. Government Certification Mandates for Software Engineers?: Concerned about the performance and cost overruns of several public works projects involving computers, Sen. James A. Seveney (D-Dist. 11, Portsmouth, Bristol, Tiverton) plans to introduce legislation that would require certification of software engineers, according to a Newport, Rhode Island news service. The big questions: Which specific certifications would be required for which projects -- and does Seveney realize partners already spend thousands of dollars each year to maintain their existing vendor certification? 18. Beware the IoT Government Hype: Telstra and Ericsson are building out a nationwide IoT network in Australia. HPE and Tata Communications say they are building the world's largest IoT network in India. The city of San Diego is building the world's largest municipal IoT network, with an assist from GE, according to Manufacturing.net. Chatter about those massive IoT projects emerged at this week's Mobile World Congress 2017 conference in Barcelona. We'll take a closer look at the projects later today... 17. Microsoft Investment: Layer, backed by Microsoft, has raised $15 million in Series B funding. Key investors for this round include Microsoft Ventures, Greycroft Partners and Salesforce Ventures. Layer, which allows developers to add messaging capabilities into any app, also acquired Cola, another communications startup. 16. Hadoop As A Service: The Hadoop as a Service market will reach $16.1 billion by 2020, which represents a 70.8 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2014, according to Allied Market Research. Hadoop, no doubt, is a popular open source storage platform for running big data applications. But many small businesses lack the budget and data science know-how to stand up their own Hadoop storage grids. Hence, the growing interest in cloud-based Hadoop services, which are widely available from Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud and others. 15. AWS vs. Office 365, Google G Suite: Amazon is preparing to bundle multiple SaaS services. The effort will counter Microsoft Office 365 and Google G Suite, according to multiple reports. The big question: Will Amazon build a partner program for those SaaS services. 14. Master Agent Agreement: VoIP Supply has entered into a Master Agent agreement to distribute PanTerra's WorldSmart, SmartBox and SentraCloud service through its CloudSpan Marketplace. In addition, VoIP Supply can authorize subagents and VARs to resell PanTerra services, the companies said. 13. Distribution - Cloud Service: Pax8, the value-added cloud distributor, has agreed to offer BitTitan’s MigrationWiz technology, delivered through MSPComplete, to its U.S. channel of IT service providers. 12. Distribution - IoT Solutions: Avnet has agreed to offer AT&T’s Internet of Things (IoT) managed services as a part of Avnet’s growing IoT solutions stack. The agreement allows Avnet to integrate AT&T’s cloud application development supported by AT&T M2X and AT&T Flow Designer. Third-party designers, in turn, should be able to develop next-generation IoT devices with global cellular connection, AT&T and Avnet assert.

11. Tech Data Earnings, ATS Buyout: Tech Data's latest quarterly results are expected on Wednesday, March 8. Among the major plot twists: Tech Data is expected to finalize the Avnet Technology Services (ATS) acquisition within the next couple of days. It's safe to expect Tech Data CEO Bob Dutkowsky to further explain the $2.6 deal's value during the earnings call. But wait. More content awaits you on page 2. Proceed to page two now and sip up the remaining items... Welcome to page two. Enjoy a second serving of channel content -- items 10 to 1 -- here.

10. Beyond Application Performance Management (APM), Part 1: Admittedly, ChannelE2E spends considerable time hyping APM to MSPs. But what comes after APM? Perhaps former New Relic Senior VP of Marketing Jay Fry has the answer. He recently exited the APM provider to join HashiCorp., which specializes in enterprise cross-cloud management market... 9. Beyond Application Performance Monitoring (APM), Part 2: Dynatrace has made progress integrating its new breed of monitoring product, formerly called Ruxit, with its popular AppMon product, according to 451 Research. Dynatrace and many of its rivals have been expanding beyond APM to address additional areas. New Relic, for instance, is extending from APM down into the network monitoring space. 8. Cloud-based Network Management: Ericsson has launched Ericsson Network Manager in a SaaS model. The offering will "better support operators in their journeys to virtualization, software-defined networking and 5G network transformation," Ericsson claims. Ummm... what took the telecom giant so long to join the cloud-based management era? 7. Monitoring Microsoft Azure: Microsoft has launched Azure Network Watcher, which allows customers customers to track such information as network topology, IP flow, security, packet capture, NSG flow logs and more. 6. Data Center Financing: Global Switch, a London-based wholesale data center giant focused on European and Asia-Pacific markets, has closed a £425 million (roughly US$527 million) credit facility with an international bank syndicate, up £50 million from its previous borrowing arrangement, Datacenter Knowledge reported. Track all data center financing and channel-related M&A deals here. 5. MSPs & College Customers: Kaseya, which has regained momentum in the MSP market over the past year, also is selling direct into the education vertical. Some MSPs may consider that direct sales competition. Still, there's an opportunity to offer those Kaseya customers outsourced IT services that extend beyond monitoring software. Kaseya Connect 2017, the company's annual user and partner conference, is set for May 9-11 in Las Vegas. Track all IT channel partner conference dates and locations here. 4. M&A - MSP Consulting: Three MSP veterans -- Chris Merrill, John Barrows and Will Ominsky -- have acquired Clarity Channel Advisory Group (CCAG), which offers business guidance and consulting services to MSPs. Financial terms weren't disclosed. The seller, Jim Lippie, retains ownership of CCAG's former parent, Clarity Channel Advisors (CCA). 3. M&A - MSPs: Atlantic, Tomorrow’s Office, an MSP that supports 20,000 customers, has acquired Praxis Data Systems (PDS), an IT Services provider that supports customers in Southern N.J. and the Greater Philadelphia area for over 20 years. We'll share more details soon. 2. Funding - IT Service Management (ITSM): KKR has invested $50 million in Cherwell Software, the companies confirmed Monday morning. The money will allow Cherwell to ramp up R&D, marketing and plenty more to counter ServiceNow and legacy players like BMC Software in the IT service management market. We'll share more details soon. 1. Top 100 Vertical Market MSPs: Complete our Top 100 Vertical Market MSPs survey, and perhaps your company will be honored and recognized when we unveil the finalized list during our April 27 webcast. More: Read all of our daily 5 Channel Partner Updates. Plus: Subscribe to our daily enewsletter. Thanks to those who already have.