The new Cloud Center of Excellence will provide organizations in the region with the technologies and skills needed to maximize the full value of hybrid multi-cloud.

Singapore, 11 September 2019 – NetApp today launched a new Cloud Center of Excellence (CoE) in Singapore, in partnership with Tech Data (Nasdaq: TECD).

The aim is to help organizations in Asean better leverage cloud to be more efficient and agile.

Hybrid multi-cloud is fast growing as a prominent IT architecture, with IDC predicting that 65 percent of companies in Asia Pacific will have a multi-cloud management strategy by 2022.

To help realize the power of the hybrid multi-cloud, the new CoE will provide the technologies and resources needed to develop and test prototypes that can unleash agility and latent abilities in the organization.

Combining the best of NetApp’s and Tech Data’s capabilities, the CoE will:

• Showcase how NetApp’s virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), DevOps, and hybrid cloud infrastructure (HCI) solutions can help various industries in ASEAN take full control of their hybrid multi-cloud environments to innovate flexibly at speed.

• Host regular technical enablement sessions on end-to-end solutions by Tech Data’s certified technical experts. Open to partners, those sessions will not only include detailed trainings and certifications, but also feature a “lite” version for Proof of Concepts.

Customers in Asean are showing increased interest in VDI, HCI and DevOps as they move to the cloud, so these are the three focus areas for the CoE.

Since VDI can help reduce the time and effort needed to manage, scale, and automate end user computing, it enables organizations improve productivity and cut operational costs by channeling their IT resources effectively.

Meanwhile, HCI provides an open and scalable infrastructure that offers consistent capabilities across on-premises and multiple cloud environments.

It also supports DevOps by making data and apps portable regardless of their location and without compromising service levels, as well as centrally orchestrate application and data services together across a hybrid multi-cloud.

These capabilities collectively enable organizations to accelerate business growth by innovating faster and through operational excellence.

“More organizations in Asean are adopting cloud as their de facto IT backbone to gain the speed and agility needed to compete in the digital age,” said Wendy Koh, Vice President, Pathways, Alliance and Strategy across Asia Pacific, at NetApp.

“The CoE aims to help organizations harness the power of the cloud with better control, costs and efficiency. It will do so by coupling NetApp’s solutions with Tech Data’s expertise to enable organizations to simplify IT management and deliver a truly seamless hybrid multi-cloud experience to scale DevOps workloads, ensure consistency of applications, as well as rapidly innovate.”

Bennett Wong, Vice President and General Manager, Asean, at Tech Data says, “Successful digital transformation is more than simply embedding technology; it requires deep industry insights combined with functional expertise and technical know-how.

“Tech Data has established this shared facility to help partners enhance their skills using a train-the-trainer concept, focusing on technology, business concepts and best practices.

“Together with NetApp, we will deliver end-to-end cloud solutions through the CoE, enabling partners to optimize their operations, increasing their speed to market so they can capture new business opportunities. We look forward to further supporting our partners across ASEAN through our unique cloud skills housed within the center.”

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