Vantage Data Centers Launches First Formal Partner Program

Vantage Data Centers, a provider of wholesale data center services, said its recently launched AdVantage Partner Program is gaining traction in the channel, as telecom agents and solution providers look to expand the scope of their data center services portfolios.

According to Greg Vernon, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Vantage, and head of the company's first-ever channel program, Vantage has on-boarded 21 partners since the program was first announced in July.

"I think there are a number of VARs that are well-suited to make the transition into this type of space," Vernon said in a recent interview with CRN. "If they are out there selling data center services and networking equipment, it all has to land somewhere. So it's a natural fit for them to start talking about this."

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Vantage has two wholesale data center facilities: one in Santa Clara, Calif., where its headquarters are, and another in Quincy, Wash. In addition to the physical data center space, the company offers data center monitoring services that provide customers with realtime visibility into metrics, such as data center temperature and power consumption.

The Santa Clara facility, Vernon said, is used today by several large cloud storage companies in Silicon Valley, along with big data startup Cloudera.

Traditionally, Vantage customers have been large enterprise or cloud computing companies whose "really high compute environments" demand the extra data center capacity offered by Vantage, Vernon said. But, recently, Vantage has been trying to move downstream to target smaller and midsize enterprise customers -- and that, Vernon said, is where the channel comes in.

"We took a step back to figure out who understands this market and who has the relationships with customers in that market, and we really felt like that was the agent and VAR community," Vernon said.

That realization, Vernon said, is what led to the launch of the AdVantage Partner Program, which includes two tracks: one for telecom agents and solution providers who want to manage the end-to-end sales process, and one for referral partners who want to simply pass on leads to Vantage.

The referral program offers a one-time payout, while the other offers recurring commissions on all Vantage services sales. Neither track has tiers based on Vantage sales volume.

While the AdVantage Partner Program is new, Vantage's executive leadership is by no means a stranger to the channel, Vernon said. He noted that Vantage CEO Sureel Choski came from telecommunications provider Level 3, which sells through the channel, and that he personally used to be an executive at a telecom agent.

"We are incredibly channel-friendly, and because we have been on the other side of the fence, as well. I was an agent before this, so have been on both sides. I understand how difficult it is to go in and forge those client relationships and how important it is that you don’t feel like the provider is working against you," Vernon said. "From the top down, we understand that."

Mike Nguyen, CEO of Silent Partner, a San Francisco-based telecom agent and MSP who recently partnered with Vantage, said he sees a big opportunity in delivering Vantage's services to the growing number of web and cloud startups sprouting up in the Bay area.

"A lot of the clients that we will be driving to them will be Bay area clients, and the web startup type clients that are coming out of cloud infrastructure and are looking to take advantage of owning some of their own infrastructure," Nguyen said.

Chris Palermo, president and CEO of Global Communication Networks, a Pompano Beach, Fla.-based telecom agent and Vantage partner, said his company sees a similar opportunity with Vantage in the Silicon Valley area. He also said his business grew by roughly 32 percent last year, and that 60 percent of the company's overall sales are in colocation.

"While there are still customers migrating to the cloud, we are still seeing a lot of colocation business," Palermo said. "There are companies that went to the cloud that are now realizing that cloud is not as cheap as they thought it was when they start to get up to certain volumes."

Vernon said other early partners in the AdVantage partner program include The Antara Group, Avant, CDH Consulting, Global Communications Group and Spearhead Networks.

PUBLISHED OCT. 8, 2014