Sixty per cent of Brocade resellers and distributors believe software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualisation will be a significant trend for all resellers within 24 months.
That's according to the results of Brocade's annual channel survey, which was completed by more than 570 Brocade distributors and resellers.
The results show that there is an opportunity for the channel to seize a competitive advantage in the industry by strategically advising global enterprises and organisations on software networking, virtualisation, and the cloud.
The channel partners noted many challenges and trends in 2014 - the most prevalent of the challenges partners saw customers facing in 2014 included managing network complexity, and meeting datacentre, bandwidth and availability requirements.
Partners also estimated that their customers’ datacentres will be mostly virtualised in the next 12 months.
Eighty per cent of partners said that they/their customers are already deploying, or will be evaluating, SDN/NFV within the next 12 months
While two-thirds of partners surveyed estimate that customers’ datacentres will be virtualised by more than 50 percent within 12 months
Brocade vice-president of global channel sales and marketing, Bill Lipsin, said, in 2015, the company's focus would be on equipping Brocade partners to lead the transformation in networking to the New IP - delivering exceptional customer experiences that leverage software networking while optimising customers’ existing networks.
“In the coming year, we’re investing in providing the building blocks for Cloud offerings so that partners can deliver networking solutions covering both cloud and on-premise solutions.”
Brocade senior director A/NZ, Gary Denman, said the modern era of social, mobile, Cloud, and Big Data imposed new requirements on the underlying infrastructure that legacy network architectures were not designed to support.
"In order for channel partners to remain relevant in this new world they must expand their networking practices to include offerings that address the requirements of the New IP,” he said.
“These offerings include future-proof technologies, including Brocade VDX switches with VCS Fabric technology, to natively automate the network in order to reduce complexity, network layers, and manual configuration tasks.”
