ANS becomes first Cisco Cloud Builder in EMEA

Manchester VAR claims to be first regional partner to bag top-level status in vendor's new programme

VAR ANS Group claims to have become the first Cisco partner in EMEA to ascend to the top tier of the vendor's recently launched Cloud Partner Programme.

The Mancunian reseller, which also works with NetApp and VMware, has attained Cloud Builder status just three months after announcing it had become the first Cisco partner to bag Cloud Infrastructure Partner status. The new badge rubber-stamps ANS' ability to sell and deploy Cisco-based cloud infrastructures, including security, networking, computing, storage and virtualisation.

Cisco launched its cloud channel scheme at its worldwide partner summit in New Orleans earlier this year. The programme contains three levels: a bottom rung for resellers of cloud services, a middle tier for development and deployment partners, and a top level for those that can build and maintain cloud environments.

ANS has singled out cloud and commoditised services as a key area for sales growth and two new organisations – recruitment specialist Howard Jackson and law firm HL Interactive – recently signed up as managed services customers.

Richard Gascoigne, who was appointed as the VAR's managed services director in April, said the Cloud Builder thumbs-up would assist the firm's strategic shift towards services.

"This demonstrates our capability to build private and hybrid clouds and provides more confidence for our customers that we are a trusted partner," he said. "We can fully manage the progress to the cloud; from assistance with initial cloud assessments and evaluations, to using our years of experience in migrating our customers to new infrastructures, to full post-implementation care in delivering the real benefits of an outsourced IT solution."