Author: Mike Magee

Flexibility, speed of delivery, breadth and depth of portfolio are important for channel success, it seems. ITHQ, supports hybrid cloud and claims to deliver “cyber resilience” to its customers.

That’s according to Nik Grove, Head of Hybrid Cloud at ITHQ. He said that as his business expanded it made sense to have an MSP option in place, especially to address customers that wouldn’t go to the likes of Rubrik directly.

“Services like Rubrik can be out of reach for many SMEs and small businesses, but thanks to this model with Assured Data Protection, it’s readily available as a managed service to businesses with smaller footprints. And all for a monthly subscription, which generates a regular income for us”, he said.

Rubrik has become a part of ITHQ’s managed service installations. Grove claims that it’s simple and straightforward to deliver,regardless of scale. This ranges from small AWS and Microsoft Office 365 deployments to much larger corporate IT and cloud infrastructures.

“Customers can be up and running almost immediately thanks to the close working relationship we enjoy with ADP. Quotes and agreements can be turned around in minutes making the service very accessible and easy to deploy”, said Grove.

Assured Data Protection is the largest MSP of Rubrik’s cloud data management platform. Its managed service offering helps customers, resellers and other MSPs expand their Rubrik operations and service offerings. In the last 12 months it added threat detection to its service offering to cater for all data management needs and align those functions with cyber security, said Grove.

“Cyber resilience is no longer a nice to have, it’s become a necessity. Premium services, such as Rubrik, that would typically cost large organisations tens of thousands of pounds to install are now available at a fraction of the cost as a managed service. This is good news for the customer and for fast growing businesses like us.”

ITHQ does not feel the need to white label the service or hide the fact it works with Assured Data Protection.

“We’re transparent with our customers. We don’t hide the fact that this is a managed service being provided. They’re happy with the ongoing support and professional services they receive. It’s an arrangement that suits all parties.”

Grove claims the managed services model is becoming a better fit for customers on a commercial and operational level. “It works better financially as businesses are finding they can consume technology as, and when, they need it, rather than having to make huge upfront investments. But this isn’t restricted to the lower end of the market. Grove is finding that this type of deployment also suits larger organisations, which is helping to drive engagements with businesses that have international footprints.”

He said:  “We are entering an exciting phase where we’re seeing lots of growth, lots of expansion. We’re taking on new projects and working with new customers. We’re active in hybrid cloud and cyber security but we’re always diversifying. Over the course of this year, we’ll be adding DevOps, data analytics and other specialisms to our portfolio. Having a partner like ADP adds credibility and supports our trajectory.”