Rancher Labs Launches OEM Program as Kubernetes Management Use Cases Proliferate

Rancher Labs, creators of Rancher, the most popular Kubernetes management platform, is further hastening industrial adoption of Kubernetes with the launch of a new Partner Program for the OEM and embedded community.

Rancher Labs’ OEM and Embedded Alliances Program is the latest addition to Rancher’s rapidly expanding Partner offering. The program will enable original equipment manufacturers, ISVs, IHVs and cloud infrastructure partners to transform legacy compute and device management models into modern, microservices-based applications that run in heterogeneous environments – without having to invest in building their own Kubernetes and containerization capabilities.

Growing demand in both traditional device manufacturing and the hybrid cloud marketplace for container technologies is driving the rapid expansion of Rancher’s multifaceted partner program. IDC predicts that, by 2025, there will be 55.7 B connected devices worldwide, 75% of which will be connected to an IoT platform. Added to this, the hybrid cloud infrastructure services opportunity is estimated to grow to $50.4 B this year, according to Gartner. The need for agile, scalable, cloud-native compute capabilities has never been so urgent, and the OEM program will help organizations capitalize on this market acceleration.

Another major catalyst for the launch of Rancher’s OEM program is the massive proliferation of new edge use cases, as showcased in the recent Computing on the Edge with Kubernetes conference, hosted by Rancher Labs, Arm, AWS and Microsoft. Unlike more traditional K8s management solutions from IBM Red Hat and VMware that require a heavy, proprietary stack, Rancher’s “open-interoperable” approach to Kubernetes management – lightweight, runs on any OS or certified Kubernetes distribution, manages millions of clusters – is ideally suited to support next-generation edge use cases.

According to Jim Sarale, VP Global Channels and Alliances at Rancher Labs, OEMs expect to generate significant revenue growth by helping organizations effectively compute anywhere, on any device, from core to cloud to edge: “Today’s OEMs are not only looking for ways to transform the delivery of devices and software, they are also keen to modernize how they are managed, consumed and accessed. Rancher’s unique open-interoperable approach enables OEMs, and their customers, to modernize with containers and Kubernetes, and orchestrate across all environments.”

NetApp Becomes First to Join Rancher OEM and Embedded Alliances Program

NetApp is the first Rancher OEM and Embedded Alliances Program member to announce a solution. The Fortune 500 technology company has been at the forefront of hybrid cloud service innovation data management for 30 years and is now working with Kubernetes and Rancher to pioneer the next evolution of hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) services.

“Businesses are under heavy pressure to improve and create new customer touchpoints – and as Kubernetes becomes more mainstream in the enterprise, IT managers are looking for an easy way to serve their DevOps teams,” said McClain Buggle, Senior Director, Product Management, HCI at NetApp. “We’re excited about this new integration with Rancher to help organizations lead with data by providing them with rich support for building, deploying and scaling containerized apps, with the easy button infrastructure experience of NetApp HCI.”

OEM and Embedded Alliances Program Overview

The new program will help OEMs meet customers’ pent-up demand – allowing them to quickly and cost-effectively provision, manage and maintain their applications’ full lifecycle on any operating system, any Kubernetes distribution and any device without having to build their own platform.

The program provides technology companies the ability to improve IT operations, improve time to market and help manage their customers’ most critical assets, anywhere. Whether operating in the retail, healthcare, energy, or finance sectors, the program will help OEMs of all kinds help their customers become more cloud-native and microservices-centric -- and become more competitive as a result.

Key Program Features

• Built-in discount volumes
• Royalty reports and PO billing options
• White-label branding
• OEM integration and support
• Rancher L2/L3 Platinum support

Supporting Resources

• Learn more about the Rancher partner ecosystem and get in contact here.
• Read Rancher’s ‘How to Build a Kubernetes Strategy’ whitepaper here.
• Read NetApp’s blog post here.

About Rancher Labs

Rancher Labs delivers open source software that enables organizations to deploy and manage Kubernetes at scale, on any infrastructure across the data center, cloud, branch offices, and the network edge. With 37,000 active users and greater than 100 million downloads, their flagship product, Rancher, is the industry's most widely adopted Kubernetes management platform. For additional information, visit www.rancher.com and follow @Rancher_Labs on Twitter. All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.

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