VMware talks new competencies

VMware (NYSE:VMW) is to update the partner competency programme it launched 18 months ago with new skews aimed at helping partners get into higher value projects such as virtualising critical applications.
 
“Traditionally we have had a very generic partner ecosystem,” Andy Hunt, VP EMEA partners at VMware told Channel Pro at VMworld Europe. “Infrastructure virtualisation was the only skill we really invested in... that is changing.” Hunt believes that for the next 12 months at least, “the focus on virtualisation of critical applications is a critical skill that our partners need to develop and a service they need to offer.”
 

VMware will officially launch its virtualisation of business critical application competency later this month and it will be rolled out to partners during Q4. There will also be a new competency on understanding Infrastructure as a Service with an enterprise management variant also planned.

To support this shift of skills, the firm is sharing some of the IP it has gained from its professional services group in the form of solution enablement kits. “Rather than asking each of our partners to start from scratch... we have packaged up best practice to accelerate their start,” explains Hunt, who also hopes partners will add their own industry knowledge to the initial blueprints.

The kits offer best practice for key applications and environments such as SAP, SQL databases, Oracle and Microsoft Exchange.

Although Hunt stresses that it’s critical for partners to skill up to make the leap from infrastructure virtualisation to higher value critical application services, the existing competencies have proven unpopular with the channel. Out of 25,000 VMware partners, only 450 have achieved the desktop virtualisation competency while around 250 earned the equivalent for business continuity.

Photo: VMware CTO Steve Herrod takes the stage at VMworld 2011.