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Symantec is also building an ecosystem around its hosted offerings to make it possible to use them as part of a cloud solution, Magee said.
Whether an MSP is building a public cloud, or a solution provider is helping customers build private clouds, they require the tools needed to ensure that customers' operations and data remain secure, he said.
"Confidence is really the enablement for the model," he said. "Enterprises are handing data to a cloud service provider. They require trust based on SLAs and on what their lawyers say. On the service provider side, they have to reassure customers that data will be secured and encrypted, and can be brought back to send to another service provider if needed."
Randy Cochran, Symantec's vice president of channel sales for the Americas, said that because of his company's dependence on the channel, solution providers will have a part to play in building the infrastructure for the cloud. "We don't have enough feet on the street," Cochran said.
Cochran said that Symantec this month plans to start rolling out new cloud training for partners as part of upcoming new channel program offerings. However, he said, the company will not make cloud a separate program, he said.
Next: Interoperability Between Cloud And On-Premise Operations
