Monetize NSX with HyAlto

At VMworld 2017, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger called NSX the “secret sauce behind everything we do.” He went on to say that “what vSphere was to the first 20 years of VMware, NSX is to the next decade or two.”

Gelsinger quantified VMware’s NSX vision during their most recent earnings call by stating that it plans to grow its NSX customer base from 4,500 to “hundreds of thousands.” To accomplish this, they plan to offer a mid-market networking product, moving NSX from being a “largely high-end” product to something more mainstream.

With such a strong endorsement from Gelsinger regarding the future of NSX, it’s easy to see the revenue opportunity for VMware’s MSP partners (VMware Cloud Providers), and indeed VMware has made strides to deliver on this by introducing NSX functionality into the VCD self-service portal. With this feature, MSPs can provide self-service NSX services to end customers.

Potential Challenges

While this is a great start, and does offer MSPs a way to resell NSX, it also comes with it’s potential challenges.

In the current model, there is no way to limit the NSX services customers can consume once they have access. Not only does this take the access control away from the MSP, but it has the potential to increase points consumption dramatically. Since NSX is considered a high-end product (as noted above), the increase in costs to the customer could be significant.

What this means is MSPs can only monetize NSX if they have customers who want full access and have the budget for it, unless the provider is willing to absorb some of the cost as a competitive advantage – a potentially expensive proposition.

This issue of access brings up a larger question – how can MSPs monetize NSX in a way that is more flexible and appeals to a wider range of customers?

At AirVM, we understand both the opportunity and the challenges. HyAlto, the newest evolution of our revenue-focused cloud management platform, offers a simple solution.

HyAlto and NSX

We’ve always believed it is important for MSPs to have choice. This was native to our previous AirSembly platform and it remains so with HyAlto.

How does this apply to NSX? HyAlto gives providers the ability to separate NSX services into individual products so customers can purchase the specific functionality that they want access to, including:

• Site to Site IP Sec VPN
• Point to Site SSL VPN
• Edge Load Balancing
• Edge Firewall
• NAT rules

This functionality makes NSX more accessible and affordable to a wider range of customers, and it puts control over consumption of services back into the hands of the MSP.

It starts in the Marketplace.

The key to this functionality lies within the HyAlto Marketplace, where the MSP creates custom NSX products, sets pricing, and offers these products for purchase. Each service can be sold on its own, or bundled with some or all NSX services for more advanced customers.

Once the products are ordered they are automatically provisioned for customers according to the specifications set out during initial configuration.

That’s it! The MSP can now sell one, two, or all NSX service to their customer base. Also, they will be easily able to charge for specific functionality by generating detailed usage reports. Those reports can be fed directly into a downstream billing system making it effortless to bill for NSX services.

Your business, your choice.

If NSX is the future, then we want to help MSPs get as much of a head start as possible. HyAlto allows the provider to make NSX more price-friendly for any customer, by delivering only the features they need with pricing to fit their budget. It’s an excellent way to capitalize on the opportunity here and now, and as the product evolves over time.

Let’s Talk!

If you’re currently reselling NSX, or want to, we’d like to talk with you. Contact us today to tell us about your plans, and we’ll show you how HyAlto can help you realize revenue now. We look forward to working with you!

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