Alkira, Telarus Team To Bring Cloud Networking To Agent Channel: Exclusive
Master agent Telarus has added startup Alkira to its portfolio, bringing in a unique, multi-cloud networking offering that will ‘make a splash’ with agent partners, the companies tell CRN exclusively.
Multi-cloud networking startup Alkira has inked a partnership with its first master agent, paving the way for the company to tap into the vibrant agent partner community.
Privately held Telarus now counts Alkira as one of its supplier partners. The master agent wanted to bring Alkira into the fold to give its agent partners access to a cloud Networking-as-a-Service specialist, especially as the networking needs of their customers change and hybrid solutions increase in demand, the company told CRN.
“We have a lot of great suppliers in that SD-WAN and SASE space, but when it comes to the inner workings and the type of connectivity that Alkira brings once the traffic gets into the cloud space, I have not seen anything like that,” Koby Phillips, vice president of business development cloud for Telarus, told CRN.
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Telarus, based in Sandy, Utah, launched its cloud practice in January 2020 and has been building out the portfolio ever since. Phillips, along with Telarus’ vice president of engineering, Josh Lupresto, is always on the lookout for what’s coming next in the telecom and networking industries. “We’re always making sure that we offer suppliers that will be that next big splash and get them integrated into the channel as quickly as possible,” he said.
Agent partners, said Philips, have started to request access to technology and vendors that this segment of partners haven’t historically had access to in the past. This shift is “continuing to legitimize the channel,” he said.
“Bringing in suppliers like Alkira—that next-gen type of networking and what customers are going to be hearing—and the ability for our partners to have access to sell that is paramount for the success of the channel,” Philips said.
Alkira emerged from stealth mode in 2020 with its consumption-based Cloud Services Exchange (CSX), a unified, on-demand offering that lets cloud architects and network engineers build and deploy a multi-cloud network in minutes. The company’s engineering team is working closely with the Telarus engineering team to help the master agent understand where Alkira’s technology fits into its portfolio and how it’s different from other players. Telarus, for its part, will be educating its own partner base on Alkira’s offering.
The startup’s plan is to go to market primarily through channel partners, Alkira has told CRN.
For partners, Alkira’s offering is complementary to many of the existing cloud suppliers within the Telarus portfolio, Philips said. “Alkira does a very specific piece of the network design element, but it fits in nicely with a cloud strategy—even a network optimization strategy,” he said. “It’s another conversation that partners can have that fills in some gaps.”
Alkira is expecting “tremendous growth” with the help of Telarus, said Alkira CEO Amir Khan. “We don’t see a single customer that doesn’t have a multi-cloud strategy,” he said. “We’re really looking forward to continuing to grow with partners like Telarus and excited to extend our reach to other kinds of customers.”
Alkira, based in San Jose, Calif., was founded by Khan and his brother, Atif Khan, Alkira’s CTO. No strangers to the networking industry, the two brothers and tech luminaries created and co-founded SD-WAN provider Viptela, which was bought by Cisco in 2017 for $610 million.