ScienceLogic Creates More Opportunity In The Channel By Enabling Technical Services Partners

Cloud management software vendor ScienceLogic expanded its channel program Tuesday to include partners delivering implementations, integrations and other value-added services.

ScienceLogic, which launched the formal channel focused on resellers last year, is now recruiting partners looking to develop the skills to integrate its solution with products from other Software-as-a-Service vendors, provide ongoing management services and even offer some custom software development, Steve Kazan, senior director of channel development, told CRN.

The company, based in Reston, Va., will enable and reward partners that earn certifications through the new Technical Services Partner Program, Kazan said.

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ScienceLogic already has signed six partners to the technical services program. The company is hoping to see that channel swell to a couple of dozen, Kazan said.

Since the launch of its ChannelLogic program in February 2016, ScienceLogic has recruited about 100 new resellers and expanded its channel leadership team around the globe, Kazan said. Technical services certifications mark the second phase of that process.

"The idea is we find very technical, experienced, proficient channel partners who will focus on the services," he said. "They can add value, and they can earn quite a bit of services revenue that's higher margin than resale."

As environments become more complex, partners really show their value by delivering comprehensive solutions that span a variety of different platforms and technologies. ScienceLogic has focused on enabling those types of projects, Kazan said.

The company has built hundreds of pre-packaged integrations it calls PowerPacks, and it encourages partners to build their own. It has also entered a major technical partnership with IT services giant ServiceNow.

But there are many ways partners can extend the platform across solutions popular in the market. One partner, for example, is currently developing integrations with Salesforce products that will be reusable assets for their practice, Kazan said.

Ken Rizzo, CEO of OpsVision, a services management specialist headquartered in Northern Virginia, said he's been waiting some time for ScienceLogic to build out a technical services component of its channel.

"Software vendors are very good at their own product – deployment, configuration – and that adds significant value to the customer," Rizzo told CRN. "But as we all know in the large complex environments we work in today, there's always going to be integration, customization – new technologies coming online that have to be accounted for."

No single technology vendor can enable those types of heterogeneous environments. That mission falls on the channel, he said.

But ScienceLogic has empowered partners by developing a solution that easily ties into many other vendors' services and applications, Rizzo told CRN.

OpsVision has focused extensively on leveraging the partnership that extends monitoring of ServiceNow environments beyond what is available out of the box. But ScienceLogic's platform can be used to monitor almost all software products that store authoritative data, he said.

And with the technical partner program, it's much easier for partners like OpsVision to work with ScienceLogic to provide feedback from the field that bolsters future versions of the platform, he said.

"Their commitment to that is why the product is getting better with every release," Rizzo said.