Tradewinds Brokerage adds Cato Networks to vendor stack

Tony Heywood (Tradewinds)

Services distributor Tradewinds Brokerage, part of Telarus Group, has entered into a distribution agreement with networking specialist Cato Networks.

Under the new deal, Tradewinds will be able to offer cloud-based and secure SD-WAN to its technology brokers.

“Many enterprises are deploying SD-WAN to assure highest-levels of quality of service and availability, and we are excited our partners will be able to offer this to their customers," Tradewinds A/NZ regional vice president and head of channels Tony Heywood said.

Meanwhile, Cato Networks A/NZ regional director Ed Sawkins added said the agreement can help Tradewinds’ partners raise their game in the market through adding SD-WAN to their product portfolio.

The networking vendor enables enterprises to replace multi-protocol label switching networks (MPLS) with the Cato Cloud Network, an SLA-backed, global backbone that connects sites, mobile users, and cloud resources into a secure network.

Tradewinds has been steadily building up its vendor portfolio locally.

In December, the distributor became a master agent for unified communications vendor, Mitel across Australia and New Zealand, offering its MiCloud Connect solution to accelerate customers’ migration to the cloud.

With a specific focus on cloud, contact centre and unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS), the Tradewinds portfolio also includes Rackspace, Nice inContact, RingCentral, fuze, OBT Anywhere and 8x8.

In August, Telarus rebranded to Tradewinds in the Australian market, with the name change coinciding with the distributor’s official local launch on 21 August.

The distributor is pioneering the agency model concept in A/NZ, in which third-party cloud brokers are recruited, trained, and supported to advise clients on which cloud communications and/or infrastructure service is suitable.

The partner registers the business opportunity, and gets compensated for it, even without the specific vendor certification.