NetBrain’s Refreshed Network Assessment Program Includes Access To Cloud-Hosted AI Platform: Exclusive

“The idea of learning quickly and being proactive and more efficient, doing more with less, is kind of the big selling point with this new ACE+ [program]. It’s still ACE, but the plus on top of it means cloud-hosted, more nodes, more agentic AI capabilities [and] more use cases,” Ryan Couch, NetBrain’s CMO and head of channel, told CRN.

Network automation specialist NetBrain Technologies has refreshed its network assessment program to arm partners with everything they need to run automated network assessments while providing access to NetBrain’s flagship AI-powered automation platform, the company’s executives told CRN exclusively.

The new ACE+ program, which stands for “Assessment Consultant Edition,” was introduced on Thursday during NetBrain’s second annual user conference. ACE+ offers an unlimited, cloud-hosted version of NetBrain’s AI-powered platform that will over time take the place of the company’s existing ACE program.

“The idea of learning quickly and being proactive and more efficient, doing more with less, is kind of the big selling point with this new ACE+ [program]. It’s still ACE, but the plus on top of it means cloud-hosted, more nodes, more agentic AI capabilities [and] more use cases,” Ryan Couch, NetBrain’s CMO and head of channel, told CRN.

[Related: AI-Infused NetBrain Next-Gen Platform Updated To Embrace Network Automation ‘Awakening’]

ACE+ includes access to two different deployment options of its platform, expanded node capabilities, and advanced AI diagnostics, according to executives. The two deployments models are the ACE+ All-in-One for the desktop, which lets partners run assessments supporting up to 1,000 nodes — up from 200 — directly from a laptop with no internet required. This option is a good fit for large onsite demos and assessments, the company said. The second is ACE+ Cloud, a good fit for the largest global enterprises in which partners run the software on their own AWS or Azure cloud instances with unlimited scale. NetBrain will offer the license and support while partners control the environment, the company said.

NetBrain earlier this year made its full-functionality licenses, or “copies” of its flagship platform available to the channel for customer demos for the first time. Since then, the company has issued 570 NetBrain licenses globally, Couch said.

The program aims to help partners run network assessments more efficiently, while providing more proactive monitoring and reducing outages for customers, Couch said.

Irvine, Calif.-based solution provider giant Technologent uses NetBrain for all of its customer network assessments, and also offers services built on top of NetBrain’s assessments. The new ACE+ program will give Technologent the flexibility to frame its offerings the way that it wants to with its end customers and give these clients the outcomes that they’re looking for from a business perspective, said Paul Russo, director of enterprise operational observability for Technologent.

“The Pathfinder initiative that we started at Technologent, powered by NetBrain, we have offerings that range from door opener offerings, where we can come in and do an initial discovery and solve an immediate pain point, all the way through to application centric network mapping,” Russo said. “ACE+ [lets us] start that journey with the customer with very little friction and then involve NetBrain in that engagement in true partnership, tackling these problems for the customer.”

The previous ACE program had limitations around device counts, but the expanded licensing model with ACE+ and the additional capabilities around AI, will let Technologent scale to larger models for enterprise customers, Russo said.

The program also includes a new golden assessment library, which is based on real-world outages and offers preemptive solutions to partners, Couch said.

Free partner training and support are available as NetBrain aims to drive revenue for partners and end customer value, said Brian Howard, NetBrain’s North American channel leader.

“We want [partners] selling network and cloud and software and services and managed services. A year from now, what would be a great success story is that we’ve got dozens of partners, if not more, building services offerings on a platform they trust,” Howard said.

The program is also expected to attract new partners, particularly MSPs, Couch added.

NetBrain does about 80 percent of its business through the channel, according to the Burlington, Mass.-based company.