Certify

In order to sell the XIV product, IBM requires that you become an XIV certified partner. This requires you to add the Storage Product Category S4 to your portfolio and obtain the necessary certifications required. The process of adding this product is below:

• Email Melissa Cook, kcook@arrow.com to add the product. She will complete the application and will provide to IBM.
• To be approved to market IBM Category S4 Storage Products, IBM Business Partners must have within six months of application approval a minimum of two (2) technical resources, each of whom must hold the above technical certification (or latest version). (See below for details).
• Start selling!

Here are the training and certification resources & roadmaps:

• Training and Certification: http://ibm.com/partnerworld/xiv

• Sales XIV Roadmap. Download the roadmap from the MPOWER Partner Portal under the Resource Section of the website. Search under Sales XIV Roadmap.
  1. Complete the IBM education online using the roadmap above
  2. Attend the Arrow 1 days Pre-Sales Training class that will enable you to get up to speed quickly in order to sell XIV. For class details and schedule, see Wayne Foreman, wforeman@arrow.com

• Technical XIV Roadmap: Download the roadmap from the MPOWER Partner Portal under the Resource Section of the website. Search under Technical XIV Roadmap.
1. Complete the IBM certification test #965 using the roadmap above
2. Attend the Arrow day hands on training for partners’ technical resources. For class details and schedule, see Wayne Foreman, wforeman@arrow.com

Once you have your certifications, you can start engaging the Solution Architects for web-based solutions. You can use them for:

• One-on-Ones (SA) – Tony Owens toowens@arrow.com. He is responsible for:
  • Solution design
  • Training roadmaps
  • Solution training
  • Solution lab
  • Solution demos
• Sales support
• Demos
• Solutions Center - http://mpowered-lab.com/ or Solutionslab@arrow.com to schedule time or ask questions. This lab located in Alpharetta, GA has server, storage and networking equipment from IBM, HP, Sun, EMC, Hitachi, NetApp, Brocade, Cisco, McData, Quantum and APC.

The purpose of the center is to create a heterogeneous technology environment that partners can access and use for education, training, demonstrations and Proof of Concept testing. Because the solution center contains equipment from multiple vendors, partners have a unique opportunity to test specific configuration options before proposing them to a customer.

Partners also can set up their customer’s environment in the center so they can make sure they know everything they need to know prior to working onsite at a customer location.

Finally, the solution center provides a unique opportunity for partners to either perform hardware demonstrations themselves or use Arrow or vendor resources to perform demonstrations for their customers.