Comstor Launches Cisco-Centric Cloud Service With PeakColo Partnership

Comstor, the Cisco distribution business of WestCon Group, announced a new cloud distribution partnership with PeakColo Tuesday. The partnership will make PeakColo's cloud services platform readily available to channel partners.

The PeakColo partnership will allow Comstor resellers to offer white-label, Cisco-powered cloud offerings, said Geoff Fancher, senior vice president of Comstor.

"Our goal is to help partners grow and be successful in their businesses, and these offers will help them expand their portfolio to provide white-label, cloud-based offers that are based on Cisco technology," said Fancher. "White-labeling will offer the partner flexibility in how they want to bring the product to market."

[Related: Longtime Cisco Channel Exec Takes Over U.S. Comstor Business ]

With PeakColo, Comstor will offer Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) based on the FlexPod architecture that combines Cisco, NetApp and VMware products in a single stack.

"With hosted collaboration services, customers really want to pay by the drink, so we see it as a fantastic opportunity to take advantage of a market that's in transition right now," said Fancher. "If you look at the Peak offer, they are going to be able to immediately offer the FlexPod offering, build private and public clouds, do storage, disaster recovery and backup as a service."

Fancher said the Cisco sales force will be compensated for partner sales. In addition, the cloud offer will bring recurring revenue streams for solution providers. "Our partners know how strong that Cisco sales force is, and as distribution, we are in a unique position where we can bring EMSPs [enterprise managed service providers] together with the partner base and participate in that supply chain in gaining access to this market," said Fancher.

Robert Mueller, executive solutions architect at MNJ Technologies Direct, a Comstor VAR based in Buffalo Grove, Ill., believes the new partnership is beneficial in bringing the combination of PeakColo's solutions and Comstor's ability for procurement and billing.

"We’re excited to augment our portfolio of solutions to include private cloud and co-location services, which will offer our customers choice of on-premise and off-premise alternatives," said Mueller. "This flexibility allows MNJ to keep our focus on our customers' needs and recommend cloud solutions as confidently as our traditional premise solutions we offer today." According to Fancher, Comstor's new relationship with PeakColo is based on PeakColo's 100 percent channel-centric model. This focus is really what leverages in reaching customer needs, said Fancher.

"The channel is the foundation of our company. We're there to help Cisco drive the channel, and we help them recruit and grow partners," said Fancher. "We are focused on helping partners grow partners within the Cisco product line, and this is another way to do it as we drive the cloud architecture and reseller model."

This is the second cloud distribution partnership for PeakColo in recent weeks. Last month, the cloud provider teamed up with Avnet Technology Solutions in a similar distribution agreement to provide IaaS to Avnet resellers.

PUBLISHED SEPT. 18, 2013