Veeam unveils VASPs

Veeam has rolled out some enhancements to its ProPartner programme and revealed that it is working with 50 accredited services partners.

The data management specialist has awarded the Veeam Accredited Service Partner (VASP) ranking to those that have demonstrated high levels of expertise and technical knowledge. Each one is given a dedicated technical leader from the vendor.

There are four VASPs in the UK: Nexus Open Systems, Comms-care, Xtravirt and Tech Data.

“Businesses are more reliant on digital infrastructure than ever before,” said Daniel Fried, GM and SVP, EMEA and worldwide channels at Veeam. “With digital transformation a strategic focus for EMEA businesses, partners need to remove the complexity and solve more strategic challenges, while also delivering a broader range of services.”

Veeam undertook research earlier this summer that indicated there was a real opportunity for those in the channel that had the skills to help customers unable to deal with backup and management issues on their own.  Its Data protection trends 2020 report found that many customers were looking at offerings, including backup as a service (BaaS), because they lacked the in-house skills to implement more digital transformation.

“By investing in our most active and highly qualified partners and leveraging their expertise through the VASP programme, we can support our customers seamlessly in all geographies across EMEA and have them understand and experience much better the benefits they can get out of cloud data management and also deepen our relationships with them,” said Fried.

Some of those that have been given VASP status commented on the benefits the closer relationship Veeam would have on their prospects.

“We are proud to be one of the top 50 EMEA companies who have joined the VASP programme,” said Andrea Mauro, CTO at Assyrus. “It provides real potential in terms of education for our team to increase their expertise to always deliver best-in-class professional services, a power boost for our business opportunities and promotion, and it strengthens our partnership with Veeam.”

Even before the coronavirus struck, many vendors had decided that growth would come from concentrating on their top partners, and Veeam has added to the number of examples of that policy being followed in the channel.

Christopher Webber, research director, strategic alliances at IDC, said: “The enhancements to the VASP programme will help Veeam’s most productive partners address the digital transformation and cloud data management needs of its customers.

“Partners are expanding their offerings to meet these needs, and Veeam is investing in its partner community to support this process, increasing access to its own knowledge and expertise to become true strategic advisers.”