Cisco Targets $14B Data Center Play With New Nexus Switch

"As the network becomes more relevant, partners become more relevant. We estimate we will double our [data center] hardware technology sales to $10 billion over the next number of years and services are growing at a faster rate than hardware," said Edison Peres, vice president of worldwide channels at Cisco, San Jose, Calif., during a press conference. Cisco foresees an additional $4 billion in partner services opportunities in the data center, creating a $14 billion data center opportunity for Cisco channel partners within the next five years, he said.

Peres noted that not all Cisco channel partners will be interested in pursuing data center solutions, but those with server, networking and storage skill sets are best positioned to take advantage of the opportunity.

Pat Bodin, founder and CEO of Firefly, an Atlanta-based solution provider, said Cisco's data center vision and the opportunity to add services around it is going to be a key differentiator for resellers going forward. "This is critical to the market," he said. "It's going to be a requirement for us." Bodin said centralization is fueling the need to unify operating systems onto one machine. "Having a service portfolio is expected in the data center," he said. "I think services are critical, and it's not something you can muddle around with. It will be the key differentiator." He said to offer services in the unified data center, resellers will have to have both the capability and the capacity. Obtaining both is going to be a challenge for many partners, he noted.

To train and incent its partners to chase the new market opportunity, Cisco at the conference also launched several new channel initiatives, including a new data center specialization and the addition of data center products to its popular Value Incentive Program (VIP), a back-end rebate initiative that rewards partners for sales growth and customer satisfaction.

Data center technologies will be added to the VIP program starting in August, providing five percent to 10 percent backend rebates to partners that meet the program's growth and customer satisfaction requirements over the following six months. VIP already includes products from Cisco's unified communications, security and wireless networking portfolios.

All training for the new Advanced Data Center Networking Infrastructure Specialization 2.0 is available now to partners for free via the Web, Peres said.

Andrew R. Hickey contributed to this article