Australian MSP Applaud Becomes VAR for Nimble Storage

A new partnership has been forged between Australian MSP Applaud and Nimble Storage, an enterprise storage company. Applaud is now a value-added reseller (VAR) for Nimble and part of the company’s partner network.

Applaud, which offers consulting as well as managed services, will resell hybrid arrays from Nimble through the arrangement. The MSP will also make available Nimble technical training, professional services and post-sales support.

A major factor in the partnership is the increasing demand for hybrid storage solutions from Applaud customers. According to the MSP, a growing rate of adoption of virtualization, cloud services and big data strategies in their region has created a need for better storage solutions for customers.

Indeed, Gartner forecasts that Australian cloud services revenue will grow at a healthy 15.3 percent CAGR from 2012 through 2017. 2016 is expected to be a standout year for the cloud in the region as adoption shifts from private clouds to hybrid architectures.

According to Ricci Danieletto, co-founder and managing director of Applaud, Nimble’s flash-optimized storage portfolio will complement the MSP’s IT offering well when working with data centers and private cloud-centric solutions. Hybrid storage solutions from Nimble are based on the company’s patented Cache Accelerated Sequential Layout (CASL) architecture. The offerings are designed to leverage the read performance of flash along with the cost-effective features of hard disk drives. Solutions also feature the Nimble InfoSight cloud-based management service.

“Applaud’s expertise in managed, cloud and professional services will help both companies deliver innovative storage technology and the highest level of performance, capacity and ease of use solutions which Australian business requires,” said Theo Hourmouzis, Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) channel sales director for Nimble.