Content, 5 things

5 Channel Partner Updates: Tuesday 25 June 2019

Here are five (actually, far more…) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Tuesday, June 25, 2019.

A. Our Daily Brew

  • What We Serve: Content for managed services providers (MSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs), IT consulting firms, systems integrators, VARs, independent software vendors (ISVs), and any other partner acronym that further caffeinates our already stellar SEO.
  • Frequency: Every business morning.
  • Reaching the Barista: Send news, tips and rumors to [email protected].

B. Freshly Brewed News and Chatter

1. Ransomware – MSP Pays Hackers: An MSP bowed to hacker demands and paid more than $150,000 to recover data after a ransomware attack.

2. M&A - MSPs: CompassMSP has acquired of GreenPoint Business Solutions, an IT services firm founded in 2008.

3. M&A - MSP and Office Equipment Dealer: Network Computing Solutions of Topeka, Kansas, has acquired Power On Technologies, a Kansas City-based MSP and dealer of office equipment, copiers, printers and document management solutions. Zygoquest advised Power On Technologies on the asset sale.

4. M&A - Data Protection Services: StorCentric, parent company of Drobo and Nexsan, has acquired privately owned backup software company, Retrospect. The acquired business provides backup and recovery tools to more than 500,000 consumers, professionals and SMBs worldwide.

5, M&A - API Consulting Services: ProKarma has acquired Vanick Group, a technology consulting firm focused on API strategy and services that drive digital transformation and business growth. The deal includes Vanick Group's Fifty Seven Pounds and Totus brands.

6. M&A - Managed WordPress Services: WP Engine is acquiring Flywheel, a WordPress hosting and management company based in Omaha, Nebraska.

7. Funding - Behavioral Analytics: TrueFort, an application behavior security analytics company, has raised $13.7 million in Series A funding, which will be used to expand its business of protecting organizations from breaches, Dark Reading reports.

8. Funding - Systems on a Chip: UltraSoC has raised £5 million for its system on a chip technology. The company plans to address emerging opportunities in cybersecurity, high-reliability and safety-critical systems markets. Investors include eCAPITAL, Seraphim Capital, Indaco Venture PartnersOctopus VenturesOxford Capital, Techgate, and business angel Guillaume d’Eyssautier.

9. Funding - Software: Deutsche Telekom’s venture capital arm said on Tuesday it was closing its second fund to new money after raising $350 million to invest in software service companies that are powering digital transformation, Reuters reports.

10. AWS Control Tower:  Amazon has launched AWS Control Tower, a multi-account management tool. Several major MSPs and IT consulting firms have embraced the platform. Stay tuned for updates on ChannelE2E, and track AWS re:Inforce cybersecurity conference news on MSSP Alert.

11. Talent – Boardroom: HP Enterprise has named CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz to its board of directors. The move is intriguing for two reasons. First, Kurtz can educate HPE about all things security. Second, Kurtz and CrowdStrike have deep experience with recurring revenue business models — especially as they pertain to MSP and MSSP partners. For its part, HPE has vowed to offer its entire product line as a service by 2020.

12. Talent - Data Protection Part One: Axcient has promoted Angus Robertson from chief marketing officer to chief revenue officer. The MSP-focused data protection company has also aligned its Office 365 backup service to be priced on a per-user model -- more closely aligning with MSP business models, CEO David Bennett told ChannelE2E at last week's DattoCon19 conference in San Diego.

13. Talent - Data Protection Part Two: Zerto has hired Veritas veteran Amber Johanson as vice president of global pre-sales engineering. The role will focus on building a world-class technical sales organization, the company says.

14. Issue - Data Protection: StorageCraft has confirmed a recent data protection issue to ChannelE2E. In a statement to ChannelE2E, the company said:

"On June 4, 2019, one of StorageCraft’s U.S. data centers suffered a series of three near-simultaneous hardware failures localized in a single data pool. This was an unprecedented event in more than five years that StorageCraft Cloud Services has been in continuous operation. The incident caused loss of recovery-point data for a small percentage of U.S. customer images stored in that pool. The event did not affect these customers’ local backups of the affected images. StorageCraft reached out to all affected partners within twenty-four hours and advised them that it was necessary to reseed the affected machines. StorageCraft proactively commenced reseeding of many of the affected machines beginning on June 5. Most affected machines have now been reseeded and the remaining machines are either currently reseeding or awaiting customer action.

The drives at issue in this event were manufactured by leading vendors and have enterprise-grade reliability specifications. StorageCraft contacted these vendors immediately following the failures and is working with them to obtain detailed failure analyses. In addition, StorageCraft has begun implementing mechanisms to reduce drive rebuild and failover time, which will reduce the time window during which multiple drive failures could occur and result in a similar issue in the future. StorageCraft is also modifying its deployment architecture to withstand three catastrophic failures instead of two, while still guaranteeing data integrity. Partners with questions should contact (801) 545-4718."

15. AI and Networking: Mist Systems, a Juniper Networks company, today announced new products and services that leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to bring simplicity, flexibility and scale to IT operations and support, the company claims. The additions include new 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) Access Points (APs), the new Mist Edge; and an AI-driven support model for IT, Mist says.

16. Cloud Cost Management:  Sunshower.io, a Colorado-based cloud management and optimization company, has launched its Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2 cloud management platform. Sunshower.io uses proprietary algorithms to "provide customers an average cost savings of 66% on their cloud computing resources, along with industry-leading cloud optimization results and cutting-edge infrastructure visibility tools," the company claims.

17. Anomaly Detection: LogicMonitor, has introduced anomaly detection capabilities to the company's SaaS-based performance monitoring platform for enterprise IT and service provider.

C. Channel Partner Programs and Strategic Alliances: MSPs, CSPs, ISVs, VARs

1. Collaboration Solutions:  Steelcase is working more closely with IT channel partners including VARs, MSPs and solution providers worldwide to promote collaboration solutions in the workplace.

2. Cloud Partner Marketplace: Cloudscene has launched Cloud Pathfinder, an online app that allows enterprises to search and connect with cloud partners.

3.  UCaaS: 8x8, the unified communications as a service (UCaaS) provider, has launched the Elev8 Partner Program. All current and future contracted partners will be immediately enrolled in the tiered program, with benefits targeting both master agents and sub agents.

4. PCI Compliance: PCI Pal, a secure payments provider to contact centers, has launched a new global partner program to reinforce the company's ‘partner first’ channel approach.

D. Next Five Technology Conferences

  1. LogicMonitor Level Up (June 24-26, Austin, Texas)
  2. Microsoft Inspire (July 14-18, Las Vegas)
  3. IT By Design Build IT (July 14-16, Jersey City, New Jersey)
  4. Datadog Dash (July 16-17, New York)
  5. CompTIA ChannelCon (August 5-9, Las Vegas)
  6. BonusChannelE2E’s complete event calendar

Got news to share for our morning update? Email me: [email protected].

Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.