Rubrik’s Bahr: New NetApp-Rubrik Relationship Gives Partners ‘The Best Of Both Worlds’

‘This is a tremendous cultural fit. It’s a partnership born in the field. Our partners understand they have an opportunity to play a role in enhancing the integration and experience customers get when working with both vendors,’ says Wendy Bahr, Rubrik’s chief commercial officer.

Rubrik and NetApp are moving closer together with a deal that brings Rubrik’s data protection technology to NetApp’s global price list.

The new relationship between the two vendors gives NetApp’s channel partners the opportunity to more easily bundle NetApp’s storage technology with Rubrik’s data protection capabilities, said Wendy Bahr, chief commercial officer for Palo Alto, Calif.-based Rubrik.

“This is a tremendous cultural fit,” Bahr told CRN. “It’s a partnership born in the field. Our partners understand they have an opportunity to play a role in enhancing the integration and experience customers get when working with both vendors.”

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Many Rubrik partners are also NetApp partners, Bahr said.

“Those partners get the best of both worlds,” she said. “Many of those partners can be expected to get Rubrik off the NetApp global price list, which will let them quote NetApp and Rubrik on the same invoice. And NetApp has a large installed base, so many customers should be open to the integration of the two.”

In addition to combining products from both vendors on a common invoice, Rubrik and NetApp partners who sell both products via NetApp’s global price list will be able to benefit from both companies’ channel programs, including qualifying for sales value and volume for both programs, Bahr said.

“They won’t get stacked rewards,” she said. “But they may get stacked MDF, volume credit and program status.”

The NetApp global price list now includes the Rubrik Go Business Edition and Rubrik Go Foundation Edition, Bahr said. The Business Edition includes ransomware protection, she said.

“Customers have a big interest in ransomware protection,” she said. Bad guys don’t take a day off. But if you are confident in your backups, you don’t have to pay the ransom.”

The Rubrik and NetApp relationship is a welcome one to the channel, said John Woodall, vice president of engineering west at General Datatech, a Dallas-based solution provider and partner of both vendors.

“I know people on both companies’ alliances teams who know each other,” Woodall told CRN. “I told them the two are better together. And lo and behold.”

Rubrik and NetApp offer complementary products with very little overlap between them, Woodall said.

“Sure, you can use NetApp’s native tools for some disaster recovery and ransomware protection,” he said. “But Rubrik extends these capabilities. A security in-depth approach is better if there are multiple layers rather than all eggs in one basket. You can store data in NetApp and on the Rubrik platform for immutability. NetApp snapshots are read-only and can be made immutable. Rubrik has an immutable file system. So you can work with both platforms.”