https://www.techtarget.com/searchitchannel/news/252491406/Cisco-DevNet-partner-community-expands
Cisco's push for its channel allies to take up coding has led to continuous growth of the Cisco DevNet partner community.
DevNet, Cisco's developer program, has courted partners for years. According to Cisco, nearly 400 partner companies employ personnel with DevNet certifications. In November 2019, Cisco unveiled its DevNet Specialization for partners, which focuses on a company's software development practice as opposed to individual Cisco certified professionals. Thus far, seven partners have obtained DevNet Specializations: Comtec, Miradot, Natilik, NetCloud, Presidio, SoftServe and World Wide Technology.
More DevNet-specialized partners are on the way, said Susie Wee, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco DevNet and CX Ecosystem Success at Cisco. Wee said 200 partners are currently in the DevNet Specialist pipeline.
Wee noted that partners usually begin their DevNet journey by encouraging employees to obtain DevNet certifications. Next, partners will create an automation practice around those certified employees, and then move on to pursue DevNet Specialization as a way to differentiate the business.
In 2021, Cisco DevNet partners that develop software offerings can take the next step: selling the software through the DevNet Marketplace. The DevNet Marketplace is slated to go live in the spring of 2021, with limited availability offered in early 2021, Wee said.
Cloud and containers received top billing this week at the NetApp Insight digital conference.
NetApp released Spot Storage and Spot Ocean, stemming from its June 2020 acquisition of Spot, a startup focusing on public cloud management and cost optimization. The new products work together to facilitate microservice-based application deployment on Kubernetes.
NetApp Insight also touched on private, public and hybrid clouds and the vendor's role in those environments. The cloud has been a key direction for NetApp for several years. NetApp has looked to involve its partners in its cloud journey, with the company creating incentives around cloud offerings as part of its partner program refresh earlier this year.
Chris Norris, senior director for cloud and data center transformation at Pivot Technology Solutions, an IT provider and NetApp Cloud First Partner based in Norcross, Ga., said his main interest in NetApp Insight was to learn about NetApp's cloud strategy and how the company plans for evolving its product portfolio. He cited NetApp's Spot purchase as particularly important.
"The Spot acquisition, in my mind, was absolutely a game changer potentially for NetApp," Norris said.
Norris said Spot's serverless and storageless offerings for containers "are really going to be key" for Pivot Technology Solutions. "I see the whole next wave of cloud being focused very heavily on the container space," he added.
Most Fortune 1000 IT executives said while they have eliminated new IT spending, enterprises still eye investments in areas such as data analytics, process optimization, security and DevOps.
A study released this week from Windward Consulting Group, a Herndon, Va., company that specializes in IT operations and IT service management, sheds light on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected IT departments. The results are based on a survey of about 300 IT leaders, including CIOs, CTOs and vice presidents/directors of IT. Windward collaborated with research firm Helix Market Research on the study.
The survey found 84% of respondents' IT teams are clamping down spending. But the research also highlighted areas in which enterprises are considering investment. Data analytics and process optimization topped the list, with 38% of the respondents citing each area.
Windward Consulting CEO Sean McDermott said the prioritization of data analytics underscores the recognition that "IT is becoming more and more data-driven."
McDermott suggested organizations may be looking to get more out of their existing data analytics capabilities. "A lot of the data, especially in the operations world, is being collected to do tactical analysis. Part of the problem is it's very expensive to do all of this and process and store the information just for tactical reasons," he said. "We are seeing a big push among our customers to use the data to ... start understanding trends that are happening so they can make better decisions on where to make investments."
He said most of his customers are looking to use their data for more value-driven purposes.
McDermott said he found emphasis on process optimization somewhat surprising but suggested the interest stems from the increase in remote work. Call centers, for example, have had to dramatically change their workflows with their employees now operating remotely. Such organizations need to optimize their processes to improve workflow, pave the way for automation and boost efficiency, he said.
Security was cited as an area for investment by 36% of the respondents, while 30% of those polled identified DevOps.
With budgets tight, enterprises may be reallocating funds to support technology priorities. The use of outside advisors, as opposed to in-house personnel, could be one source of reprogrammed funds. The survey indicated 60% of respondents plan to cut external consultants. IT tool spend is another cost-cutting area, according to the Windward report.
Market Share is a news roundup published every Friday.
30 Oct 2020