Dremio Looks To Recruit, Enable SI And Consultant Partners With Channel Program Launch

The data lake technology developer is debuting the Dremio Partner Network Tuesday, the startup’s first formal channel program, providing new and existing partners with extensive training options, go-to-market support and financial incentives.

Data lake technology developer Dremio is launching its inaugural partner program Tuesday as the startup looks to ramp up its work with systems integration and consulting partners in the big data analytics space.

The new Dremio Partner Network, with a wide range of financial, support and training benefits, provides a formal infrastructure, processes and a programmatic approach for engaging with the company’s different partner types, said Roger Frey, Dremio vice president of alliances and business development, who oversees the company’s channel efforts.

The program also will serve as a vehicle for recruiting additional systems integrators and consultants as partners, particularly those with practices in data management and data analytics, Frey said in an interview with CRN.

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Today about 20 percent of Dremio’s sales are done in conjunction with systems integrators, consultants and other strategic service provider partners. Frey said a major goal is to boost the volume of business done through the channel, including partners the company already works with and with new partners recruited through the program.

“We want to have more partner-involved deals,” Frey said, without disclosing specific targets.

“Everybody is on board to work with partners,” Frey said of Dremio’s management and staff. “We really see this as the opportunity to scale our business and it’s great to have that culture of wanting to work with partners. We’ve seen really strong interest and engagement from the SI and consulting partner community.”

Dremio develops the Dremio SQL Data Lake Platform. The software includes a query engine and semantic layer that provide data analysts and data scientists with the ability to tap into huge volumes of data for business analytics and informational dashboard tasks without the need to assemble a traditional data warehouse. The company’s software is based on the open-source Apache Arrow and Apache Parquet technologies.

Founded in 2015 and based in Santa Clara, Calif., Dremio raised $135 million in Series D funding in January, bringing the company’s valuation to $1 billion.

In its early years Dremio focused on working with its technology partners, including cloud service providers Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (Dremio is part of the AWS Consulting Partner and Private Offers program), and the developers of data analytics tools like Tableau and Microsoft Power BI that work with the Dremio platform.

In the past one to two years, however, Dremio has increasingly engaged with systems integrators and consultants who resell, implement and support Dremio’s software, Frey said. But until now deals through those partners have been managed on a case-by-case basis.

Dremio is also seeing increased demand from customers who want to work with systems integrators and solution providers that they already engage with for data analytics services, Frey said.

Another driver for launching the partner program is the company’s July debut of Dremio Cloud, a cloud-native, SQL-based data lakehouse service that works directly with cloud data storage systems. Frey said Dremio Cloud has raised the company’s competitive profile in the big data arena.

The new Dremio Partner Network will include all partner types but it is particularly intended to provide the infrastructure and processes needed to enable and support systems integrator and consultant partners.

Frey said Dremio has elicited feedback from its current partners, as well as looked at other IT vendors’ partner programs, to understand what works and what doesn’t. “We’ve seen tremendous positive feedback already and we’re really going to focus on building on that,” he said.

Dremio also has been expanding its channel management team, Frey said, and the company is looking to hire a director of channel and SI partnerships.

The new program also will be a platform for recruiting additional partners as the company ramps up sales through the channel. Dremio has already signed up new partners and has recently on-boarded several systems integrator partners.

SME Solutions Group, a Tampa, Fla.-based data and analytics solution provider, is one such partner. The company just completed the on-boarding process and has four employees set to undergo Dremio training next month, said founder, President and CEO Chris Moyer, in an interview with CRN.

“We’re going to be one of their key systems integrators,” Moyer said, describing his company’s plans to sell, implement and support Dremio’s data lake software as part of its data storage and data processing practice. Other SME vendor partners include business intelligence tool developers Qlik and ThoughtSpot and next-generation database vendor SingleStore.

“Dremio is going to help our customers achieve the performance that they need, no matter where their data is, with unlimited scalability and knowing that their investment in that product is secure.”

The Dremio Partner Network has three tiers: Registered, Gold and Platinum with partner attainment based on completed training and certifications as well as sales goals.

The program provides partners with extensive support through the entire sales cycle and comprehensive education and enablement opportunities, including technical training and certification and sales training in such areas as sales opportunities and use cases for the Dremio system.

Dremio will provide joint go-to-market opportunities, marketing support and business planning services, according to the company announcement. The program will offer market development funds and “substantial discounts [and] periodic sales incentives,” the company said. And partners will have access to dedicated partner account managers, a partner portal and a deal registration system.

SME’s Moyer said the financial incentives and margins Dremio is offering are important. But he said it’s the training and support Dremio is providing—and the trust and confidence the two companies will have in each other that will come from that—is critical. “It’s important that our own people are as competent to support their product as Dremio’s own people.”