5 Channel Partner Updates: Tuesday 31 March 2020 -

Here are five (actually a bit more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Tuesday, March 31, 2020. Sip up.

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A. What’s Hot Today

1. M&A - MSP Rebrand: Ascend Technologies is the new name for two MSPs that private equity firm M/C Partners recently combined into a single company. The former brands were West Monroe Partners' Managed Services Division and Gratia.

2. Financing - Sophos Buyout: How did private equity firm Thoma Bravo finance the $3.9 billion Sophos cybersecurity acquisition? Here's some of the math...

3. IT Service Management - Workflow Automation: SysAid has unveiled Workflow Designer, a drag-and-drop process builder that gives organizations the ability to build and modify workflows.

4. How Distributors Can Lead Amid COVID-19 Crisis: Frank Vitagliano, CEO of the Global Technology Distribution Council, offers perspectives here.

5, Cloud Cost Management: ParkMyCloud has expanded its public cloud cost optimization capabilities to container technology, starting with Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS).

6. Talent - Channel Leadership: Otava, a cloud solutions provider, has named Tim Nielsen as VP of sales and Solutioning.

7. Talent - Data Security: Acronis has named Candid Wüest as VP of cyber protection research at Acronis. Wüest will lead research into the latest trends in the threat landscape and new protection methods for partners and customers.

8. COVID-19 Assistance: DigitalOcean has launched DigitalOcean Hub For Good to support and elevate their community’s COVID-19 relief efforts. The company is committing $100,000 in infrastructure credits to new, not-for-profit projects related to COVID-19, as well as $50,000 in cash donations to the COVID-19 Relief Fund.

9. Azure Data Protection: HYCU has launched HYCU for Azure, a purpose-built data protection solution with support for Microsoft's public cloud platform.

10. Managed Services: Instaclustr Managed Elasticsearch is now generally available.

11. CompTIA Exams - Date Extensions: CompTIA has extended the expiration date on its certification exam vouchers. All CompTIA exam vouchers with expiration dates from March 17 through April 30, 2020 have been extended to June 30, 2020. All exam vouchers with expiration dates from May 1 through May 31, 2020 have been extended through July 31, 2020. Also, CompTIA will soon offer highly secure remote testing, allowing certification candidates to take their exams anywhere. Individuals who have already registered for an exam at a Pearson VUE testing center but would like to instead take a remote proctored exam have the option to reschedule their exam. Find more details here.