Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions has launched a portfolio of cloud computing services under its recently-announced professional services business unit called Arrow Fusion.  Arrow Fusion now includes cloud offerings including data center monitoring and management, security- and software-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service and business continuity and disaster recovery, according to Joe Burke, vice president of worldwide services for Arrow ECS.

Arrow expects to play a key role in solution providers’ cloud offerings, Burke said, and he doesn’t see much difference between those offerings and “big iron” hardware that the distributor also sells to VARs.

“Just because not selling a piece of hardware doesn’t mean we’re not in the same position to do what we do for the big iron guys. They can also go direct with vendors. In terms of reaching a broad base of customers, we field a large sales force and have resources around billing, provisioning. We’ll make it easier for cloud companies to reach that audience and supply their services,” Burke said.

“This gets us into a segment we’re not reaching very well today. Do we go after those partners ourselves and establish the Verio brand ourselves or find a partner? The answer was, ‘Let’s find a partner,’” Renda said. “We can not only get access to this target market via a trusted brand like Arrow, but the services we provide can [help VARs and Arrow] provide additional services, say messaging. When we talk hosted servers, it’s a rich environment where a VAR or Arrow can add professional services to integrate and design solutions. We think it’s a new set of revenue streams for VARs and for Arrow.”