CRN Exclusive: Turbonomic Doubles Down On Microsoft Azure, AWS With Expanded Program

Workload automation and optimization firm Turbonomic is extending its partner program with a new Cloud Partner Specialization designed to accelerate top Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services partners' cloud assessment and optimization practices.

Turbonomic Channel Chief Chris Sullivan has methodically grown the Boston-based software company's partner base, and emphasizes "quality over quantity" when it comes to its partner roster. He's added about 40 cloud-centric partners in recent months. The new specialty could grow that roster significantly, he said.

"I would expect us to grow conservatively by another 50 [percent] to 75 percent when you talk about cloud-centric partnerships and capabilities," Sullivan said.

Those partners, Sullivan said, tend to be small but mighty. "A lot of these partners are not the biggest shops, but they've got incredible capabilities and they're very well-aligned with Microsoft and/or AWS," he said. "They're not all big volume players, but they have a tremendous skill set and alignment to our alliance partners. We're going to bring them in, enable them and figure out how to build the right structure with them."

Under the new specialization, Turbonomic partners that also partner with Microsoft and/or AWS are called upon to model cloud migrations for customers and develop migration and optimization plans. Partners could be called upon to optimize workloads before they're moved to the cloud, and then they'll be tasked with ongoing optimization once migration is complete.

Partners that complete the specialization get access to dedicated technical resources to help with customer engagements. They also get "co-brandable" campaigns and service delivery templates, Turbonomic said. Enablement and training gives partners the muscle to deliver new services during any phase of a customer's cloud journey, the company said.

Brian McNeil, vice president of cloud transformation at Technologent, an Irvine, Calif., solution provider that works with both Microsoft and Turbonomic, said Turbonomic has been "very engaged" with its channel, and that engagement has helped Technologent deepen its relationship with Microsoft.

"We've been driving multiple programs to help our customers with their journey to the cloud," McNeil said. "As a Microsoft Gold partner, we leverage the Azure Cloud Economics framework to help customers optimize their on-prem and public cloud workloads, and we've had success here because Microsoft is embracing strategic solution providers and Turbonomic is helping drive these relationships. We love that Turbonomic is a channel-first company and that they are investing in cloud transformation partners like us."

Sullivan said partners that complete the specialization can expect broader opportunities with Turbonomic and margins in line with what they earn selling the company's traditional workload assessment software.

Turbonomic already has partnerships with Microsoft Azure and AWS, and the new specialization is intended to build upon them. Its co-sales agreement with Microsoft has built a $110 million pipeline in about eight months. The partnership with AWS is less developed, but Turbonomic has earned AWS cloud migration and cloud management tools competencies.