Arista appoints Cloud for reseller recruitment push

Cloud Distribution tasked with enlisting 20 additional UK resellers on behalf of Cisco challenger

Datacentre switching challenger Arista Networks is on a UK reseller push after appointing Cloud Distribution as a third distributor in the market.

Cloud has been tasked with enlisting 20 new UK partners for Arista at a time when the wind is behind the vendor, according to Cloud director of datacentre solutions Bruce Hockin (pictured).

Arista is the "big disrupter" in a datacentre switching market expected to grow by 30 per cent between 2016 and 2021, Hockin said.

"They are now number two in datacentre behind Cisco and are in a very healthy position to drive growth in the market," Hockin said.

Arista already worked with Arrow and Exclusive Group's BigTec arm in the UK, but Hockin claimed its channel needed more attention.

"It needs development and it needs positive engagement, and that's what we will do," he said.

"We are looking to sign up 20 partners, with up to 10 becoming key partners over the next six months. Since signing the contract we've engaged half the partnerships we need to - the response from the channel has been overwhelming."

According to Crehan Research, Cisco - with whom Arista is in a long-running legal spat - accounted for over half of total branded revenue in a datacentre Ethernet switch market that exceeded $10bn in 2016.

Arista, Huawei and Juniper, however, all saw datacentre switch revenue increases in excess of 30 per cent in 2016, resulting in share gains, the analyst noted.

In a statement, Mark Foss, senior vice president of global operations and marketing at Arista, said: "Our partnership with Cloud Distribution will help channel partners better leverage Arista's technological leadership, facilitating the customer shift towards cloud networking. Their focus on engaging new partners, and bringing software-driven datacentre solutions to market, will support our growth strategies and strong product momentum."