Being cloud veterans, ZNet clearly understands the cloud readiness and challenges of customers while migrating to the cloud and suggest appropriate measures to mitigate the problems before, during and post migration
[quote font=”tahoma” font_size=”13″ font_style=”italic” color=”#262626″ bgcolor=”#f9f9f9″]
“In terms of technical certifications, we have 120+ certified IT engineers and cloud solution architects. More than 70+ are certified on Microsoft Cloud, Acronis, AWS, Plesk technologies.”
Sabarinathan Sampath,
SVP & COO,
ZNet Technologies
[/quote]
The Cloud industry has been gaining momentum over the last several years. But the Pandemic and the ensuing shift to online operations and massive adoption of work-from-home-culture and online learning gave it a much needed shot in the arm. As the India market remains in the eye of a major digital transformation buoyed by a tech-centred Union Budget, SME Channels embarks upon recording the voices of the who’s who of the Cloud scape.
As part of our effort to make the voices of major cloud players and major cloud distributors heard by the channel community, we have brought in this for you as first of a series of Cloud Predictions by major vendors.
Here, in a special interaction with SME Channels, Sabarinathan Sampath, SVP & COO, ZNet Technologies, reveals his organization’s strategy for growing the cloud industry, his predictions for the industry in 2022 and his vision and plans for the channel community. Edited excerpts…
Please brief us on your company
ZNet Technologies Pvt. Ltd., incorporated in 2009, is the leading distributor of cloud services, IT infrastructure services, and cybersecurity services to partners across the globe. The business units of ZNet include ZNetLive and RackNap.
- ZNet is owned by RP tech India (a division of Rashi Peripherals Pvt Ltd.).
- RackNap, the cloud service delivery and business automation platform, helps cloud providers in automating the delivery of cloud services and helps bill the usage based on actual consumption.
Founded in 1989, RP tech India is the fastest growing B2B IT solutions provider with 50 branches and 50 service centers across India. Growing at a consistent 25% CAGR YoY for last 15 years, the company offers products from over 30 renowned global brands to 9000+ partners spread across 750+ towns/cities in India.
The pandemic has forced businesses to take a giant leap to go online. As a leading cloud player, how do you plan to leverage the immense market opportunity created by the pandemic?
Undoubtedly, the pandemic has accelerated the demand for cloud computing and other related services – as now people are truly realizing the power of the cloud and how it can aid in business continuity – which was a major challenge during the pandemic.
Many companies and employers were caught off-guard when the pandemic forced them to physically limit their operations and move everything online. The early adopters of the cloud – greatly benefitted during this period – as their businesses were already running on cloud. Post-pandemic we saw how companies which were once hesitant to move to the cloud – were now much more receptive towards adopting a ‘cloud-first’ strategy. Cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, and Google Cloud Platform too recorded a growth in cloud revenues – 40%, 26% and 45% respectively*. At ZNet, we work closely with these cloud giants to bring their services to our clients.
Going forward, our major focus is on building a great partner ecosystem. We are aiming for mutual growth – where we extend the reach of our cloud services and products through our partner ecosystem – while also empowering them with the right tools and strategies to build a successful cloud business. RackNap – which is our cloud automation arm will further act as a USP – by adding automation in selling cloud services.
Please shed some light on your cloud offerings.
At ZNet, we work closely with leading cloud services providers like Alibaba Cloud, Microsoft, Google, and AWS.
- We are the official distributors of Alibaba Cloud Services. This partnership helps our partners get the opportunity to work with Alibaba Cloud in India.
- We also provide Managed Cloud Services including Managed AWS and Microsoft Azure Cloud Services.
- We also provide Virtual Private Server (VPS), Dedicated Servers, and Cloud GPUs powered by NVIDIA.
- We are the global distributors of Acronis cybersecurity products and services.
How do you help businesses to forge a cloud strategy and migrate to the cloud?
ZNet is a one-stop cloud services distributor. Being cloud veterans, we understand the challenges that a customer or business might face when moving to the cloud.
Businesses need to understand their cloud readiness. We help businesses analyze their cloud adoption stage – with end-to-end migration planning. Depending upon the scale of a business, our cloud experts follow different approaches to identify the unique requirements of the business. A major challenge that businesses face when migrating to the cloud is vendor lock-in. They may start using a cloud but later find it difficult to switch providers.
Being a cloud distributor, we work with all leading cloud providers and OEMs – hence this gives our customers an easy way to choose a particular cloud service and even change providers without any difficulties.
To facilitate and fast track the process of cloud adoption (which is typically driven by Cloud Service Providers), We also recently launched ‘RackNap Altair’ – a new-age automation platform for CSPs to provide higher productivity, better usability, and stronger security to run the cloud services business. This will help both – Microsoft distributors, Direct CSPs and customers immensely. RackNap is a Microsoft preferred solution and with Microsoft ESD integration, it will empower Microsoft distributors to generate new opportunities and increase customer satisfaction by delivering a wide range of software electronically to the end customers, almost instantly.
Would you please brief us on the kind of service support you extend to your customers?
ZNetLive provides dedicated support via email, chat, and phone with 24 x 7 x 365 days availability. We have dedicated support for our Managed Cloud Services like Microsoft Azure and AWS.
Additionally, when customers or partners start using our services, they also get their panel in the automation platform. They can directly raise queries and support requests from within their customer panels.
Since cloud is a tech-intensive product, it requires proper skilling. Please detail us on the training and certification you have from various OEMs.
We encourage our employees to upskill themselves and conduct regular training to help them achieve new certifications and skillsets. In terms of technical certifications, we have 120+ certified IT engineers and cloud solution architects. More than 70+ are certified on Microsoft Cloud, Acronis, AWS, Plesk technologies.
What’s your geographic coverage? Are you planning any business expansion in the current year?
We have a global reach with more than 47k+ customers served worldwide. Both our key business units ZNetLive and RackNap have a global customer base.
We are also the global distributor of Acronis, and we recently extended this partnership to cover additional countries – USA, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
Do you plan for any new product onboarding or adding new vendors to your cloud offerings kit in 2022?
We already have a wide range of Infrastructure offerings in our portfolio:
- NTT: A pioneer in the Indian Data Centre space. Netmagic has 9 Tier 3+ Carrier-Neutral Data Centers in all seismic zones of India.
- AWS/Azure/Alibaba Cloud: Offering a range of Cloud computing solutions to our customer base.
- Perpetuuiti: Intelligent Automation and Enterprise Resilience Solutions helping customers bring back their systems online in the fastest time possible in the scenario of a disaster.
- Plesk: Server management platform
Our SaaS offering include the following:
- M365/Google Workspace: Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace (formerly G-Suite) are collection of cloud computing, productivity and collaboration tools to run a business.
- Acronis: Acronis provides full range of next-generation cyber protection solutions, including backup, anti-malware, cybersecurity, and endpoint management.
We are working on other key strategic partnerships and announcements lined up for 2022. We will be able to talk more about it once things get streamlined.
What is your USP vis-à-vis other partners in the cloud space?
Our USP is our partner ecosystem, comprehensive managed services and GTP support and our in-house built Automation Platform (to streamline the delivery and management of services).
We are focused on extending our services through our channel partners and helping them grow their cloud business.
RackNap – which is our cloud and business automation platform, plays a crucial role in making this possible.
As a cloud billing and provisioning automation platform, RackNap offers a unified platform for Cloud Services Providers (CSPs), telcos, data centers, hosting, and other subscription service providers to sell and manage services faster and increase revenues. It further helps in marketplace management, business intelligence, partner management, sales and marketing, inventory management, support, and other crucial business operations.
This year too we will focus on partnering with more OEMs and empowering more and more partners and businesses.
