5 Channel Partner and MSP News Updates: 26 October 2021 -

Here are five (actually, more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Tuesday, October 26, 2021. Sip up.

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A. What’s Brewing Today: Technology News

1. M&A - Cloud Cost Management Software: Cisco Systems is acquiring Replex, a developer of Kubernetes governance and cloud cost management software tools. MSPs that run AppDynamics from Cisco appear poised to gain more full-stack observability capabilities and spend-management features.

2. Private Equity - Digital Transformation and IT Consulting: OceanSound Partners has invested in Digital Management Holdings (DMI). Founder and CEO Jay Sunny Bajaj continues to lead DMI, and retains a "significant ownership interest in the company." OceanSound has extensive experience investing in IT consulting companies and MSPs. Examples investment include Netrix and Smartronix.

3. MSPs and Cloud-based Data Protection : Updates from key three companies include:

The MSP360 Managed Backup Service (MBS) now supports immutable storage for Amazon Web Services (AWS). The new feature prevents the accidental (or purposeful in some cases) deletion of data, and "ensures that an MSP can quickly recover customer data to the latest healthy backup after a ransomware attack occurs," MSP360 stated.

OpenText has enhanced Carbonite Server to support hourly backups, early warning, and classifications upgrades that will "enhance organizations’ ability to detect, protect, and respond to increased ransomware and other data threats," the company said.

Four MSPs -- Veristor, GM Sectec, Data Management Professionals South Africa (DMP SA)and SoftwareONE, have joined the Metallic MSP partner program from CommVault. Metallic is a SaaS-based data protection platform.

4. Partnership - Unified Communications: Lumen Technologies and Cisco Systems have expanded their partnership to include a new offering: Lumen Solutions for Cisco Unified Communications Manager Cloud (UCMC). This service pairs Cisco's cloud-based collaboration services with Lumen's global fiber network. The service seeks to promote Cisco Webex to customers.

5. Partner Program - IoT Device Security: Armis has unveiled the Armis Partner Experience (APEX) program. The program supports channel partners, resellers, systems integrators and MSSPs.

6. Channel Chief: ESET has hired Ingram Micro veteran Ryan Grant as VP of sales to lead the company’s U.S. sales team, including its channel program.

7. Telco Cloud Services: VMware has announced multiple cloud services capabilities for telecommunication companies. Details include...

VMware Telco Cloud Platform - Public Cloud, which will allow service providers to "incorporate public clouds into their overall 5G architecture."

VMware Telco Cloud Platform – Edge, which will "provide the foundation for delivery of next-generation communications and compute services at the service provider and enterprise edge."

New VMware Telco Cloud Automation capabilities designed to "enable consistent, multi-cloud operations across the entire network. In addition, support for network slicing will be added through Project Lattice, now in tech preview."

VMware’s RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) platform, which will "unlock app innovation and velocity across radio access networks (RAN)."

8. Tech Earnings: Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet are expected to announce quarterly earnings results after U.S. markets close today.