6 Cloud Trends Partners Must Watch

Cloud computing is not so much a trend as an everyday reality. Yet the pace of change in the cloud ecosystem means this is no staid, bread-and-butter opportunity for partners. In fact, the speed with which cloud vendors and services move is part of the reason why the partner opportunity is just beginning to hit its stride. In this report, we dig into six key trends that cloud-minded partners need to have on their radars.

Takeaways for Your Business

In this report you’ll learn:

• Multicloud and hybrid cloud are the new normal
• Cloud features and services are increasingly going vertical
• Cloud-native technologies such as containers offer opportunities to diversify services

About the Author

Kevin Casey writes about technology and business for a wide variety of publications and companies. He won an Azbee Award, given by the American Society of Business Publication Editors, for his InformationWeek. com story, “Are You Too Old for IT?” He’s a former community choice honoree in the Small Business Influencer Awards.

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Comcast Business, a unit of Comcast Cable, provides advanced communication solutions to help organizations of all sizes meet their business objectives. Through a next-generation network that is backed by 24/7 technical support, Comcast delivers Business Internet, Ethernet, TV and a full portfolio of Voice services for cost-effective, simplified communications management.

At the ConnectWise Automation Nation 2017 welcome reception, held in the Solutions Pavilion, partners got to schmooze and booze with each other and more than 30 vendors — a mix of resell vendors and those vendors whose solutions plug into ConnectWise Automate.

There were eight new vendor participants at this year’s event: Acronis, StorageCraft Cloud, Avalara, Auvik, Bitdefender, Passportal, IT by Design and Webroot DNS.

The day-one keynote at Automation Nation focused on the ConnectWise product strategy. The morning presenters were Brett Cheloff, general manager, Automate, and Craig Fulton, chief product strategist at ConnectWise.

What's a  tech conference without a Hack-A-Thon and Script-a-Thon? Automation Nation featured two opportunities for ConnectWise Automate geeks to participate in a little friendly competition and win prizes — including a free registration to Automation Nation 2018.

On the subject of geeks, Answer Desk consultants were available to answer any questions and solve any issues regarding ConnectWise Automate.

There was no shortage of security vendors – Webroot, ESET, Bitdefender, Datto, Intronis, Kapersky Lab, Acronis, Sophos, etc. – on the Solutions Pavilion show floor.

CEO Arnie Bellini talked about the company’s business strategy and addressing the managed security services provider (MSSP) wave with a ConnectWise solution to help partners establish a security practice.

Cisco Umbrella, launched in February 2017, is a secure internet gateway designed to address new enterprise security challenges of today’s mobile cloud-era. Cisco Umbrella, formerly OpenDNS, was acquired in August 2015.

Show attendees get familiar with the ConnectWise rebranding effort: ConnectWise Sell, formerly Quosal; ConnectWise Manage, ConnectWise Automate, formerly LabTech; ConnectWise Control, formerly ScreenConnect; and the new ConnectWise CloudConsole.

The Intronis MSP Solutions by Barracuda Lounge. Intronis is a single-source IT channel provider offering partners tools, onboarding, professional services, training and support and security with backup solutions.

Cloud distributor Pax8 announced the company’s integration with ConnectWise at the event.

According to Craig Donovan, director of software projects at Pax8, the company is rebuilding its console from the ground up, i.e. new workflows, new UI, etc., inside ConnectWise. Availability is expected by mid July. Currently, Pax8 partners use the company’s portal to access ConnectWise.

Party time. ConnectWise attendees celebrated Automation Nation at Automate PitStop for drinks, food, networking, and fun and games.