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Commvault focusing partners on cyber resilience
Vendor announces number of ecosystem partnerships as its EMEA channel chief looks to encourage more involvement with key strategy
Commvault is using its Shift event to highlight extended partnerships and the need for its channel to continue banging the drum over the data resilience message.
The event has been used as a forum to reveal relationships with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud, as well as a partnership with Pure Storage.
Commvault has expanded its Cloud Platform into the AWS ecosystem and launched its Cloud Backup & Recovery for Google Workspace. The fruits of the Appranix acquisition have also been on show, with the firm cutting the ribbon on its Cloud Rewind offering to get back to a period before a ransomware attack.
The firm has also unveiled a joint Dora Solution with Pure Storage to appeal to those customers keen to stay on the right side of the compliance regulations.
Jamie Farrelly, vice-president of EMEAI channel at Commvault, said the past year had seen the firm emphasise the cyber resilience pitch, and it was now in a position where customers understand the need for a solution that is more than a straightforward backup and restore option.
“We started to articulate the value of what we do at a cyber resilience level,” he said. “But more than that, we started to evolve our solution and services offerings.
“It’s not ‘if’, but ‘when’, and you’ve probably already been breached, but you don’t know about it,” said Farrelly, adding that there were also government regulations, including Dora, that had to be complied with adding to the pressure.
Testing and planning
He indicated that the focus for its partners was on driving an enterprise cyber resilience strategy to improve the position of more customers and lean on tools it had made available earlier this year, including Clean Room, to encourage more testing and planning.
Farrelly added that the firm was also looking to widen its market and increase mid-market activity, and use cloud-based software as a service tools as a means of getting its technology into the hands of more customers.
He added that it was making sure through relationships with AWS and Google Cloud that it was able, alongside Microsoft Azure environments, to reach users regardless of their cloud preferences.
“What does this mean for a partner? The first thing is it provides a modernisation platform that can [lead to a customer] conversation for partners of every different route to market,” said Farrelly. “They can go into a CISO [chief information security officer] or a CIO [chief information officer], or even the CEO, and talk about the thing that is actually important to them. Everybody’s interested in how an organisation like Commvault can take them into higher-level conversations around cyber resilience.”
He said it was arming partners with more support, giving them access to its simulated ransomware attack so they can underline the importance of resiliency to users.
Farrelly added that it was keen to broker more tri-party activity across its ecosystem, bringing together original equipment manufacturers and hyperscalers with partners to help solve customer problems. “You have to have that tri-party where you’ve got an infrastructure vendor, you’ve got a Commvault, you’ve got a hyperscaler, potentially, but the delivery mechanism, nine times out of 10, is going to be through a dominant partner.”
He said he was working as quickly as possible to focus partners on cyber resiliency, and that the vendor would look to drive the market forward: “We’re moving in the right direction, and we’ll continue to add functionality to these newer portfolios and get them out into the market,” said Farrelly. “So, its exciting times.”
