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Silver Peak launches certified deployment programme

SD-WAN specialist looking to get more global partners in a position to deliver the networking technology

Simon Quicke
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Published: 17 Sep 2020 17:00

Silver Peak has announced plans to roll out a global certified deployment partner programme to create a network of partners able to deliver enterprise grade SD-WAN.

The supplier is starting the scheme with a select number of partners that have got themselves into a position to gain the sales, technical and deployment certifications. The first batch that have been recruited to the certified deployment partner (CDP) include CDW, InterVision, INVITE Networks, Teneo, WWT and Xalient.

A range of certifications, backed up with exams, cover sales, technical and deployment aspects and at the start partners will have to work with a Silber Peak deployment engineer to make sure they can demonstrate the right levels of skill.

“Modern enterprises are quickly recognising that their legacy networks are holding them back from realising the full transformational promise of the cloud and many are seeking skilled partners to drive their WAN and security transformation initiatives,” said Ken Marks, vice president of North America channel sales for Silver Peak.

“This provides an unprecedented opportunity for our partners to bring new levels of business value to customers by attaining the training and certifications required to successfully drive SD-WAN deployments,” he added. “The CDP programme is architected to scale both the number of customers we can serve as well as the number of partners that we can enable to build high-growth profitable SD-WAN business practices.”

Lauren Fortune, chief marketing officer at Teneo, said that MSPs were always on the lookout for ways to increase expertise and welcomed the CDP launch.

“Becoming a Silver Peak CDP partner enables us to further our ability to solve customers’ most challenging networking problems with an advanced SD-WAN edge solution that applies tomorrow’s logic to seamlessly connect users directly and securely to the applications that fuel business innovation,” she said.

Increasing SD-WAN knowledge

Jeff Wynne, services vice-president at WWT, said that the efforts its team would have to go through to gain the certifications would increase their SD-WAN knowledge overall, which would be a plus for the wider business.

The timing of the launch of the CDP scheme comes at a time when many customers are evaluating their infrastructures in response to the coronavirus pandemic. There is growing evidence that many employers will be working with a distributed workforce for a long time to come.

Silver Peak reacted to research from Gartner that came out over the summer around the ongoing support for home working, reminding partners of the need to help customers with their infrastructure.

“When it comes to the network, the primary challenge is in connecting this workforce to business-enabling applications and services residing in the data centre and the cloud,” said Simon Pamplin, technical director at Silver Peak.

“Critical to meeting this challenge will be in employing advanced network solutions that can effectively prioritise application use that is integral to efficient operations,” he added.

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