Strategic Alliance Between NetApp and Tata Consultancy Services

NetApp and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., a global IT services, business solutions, and outsourcing firm, announced a global strategic alliance between the two companies and the launch of the new NetApp-TCS Center of Excellence (COE) Lab and Global Onsite Residency Program at the TCS Siruseri, Chennai, delivery center. The COE Lab and Global Onsite Residency Program are designed to provide joint clients enhanced services and capabilities that enable customer breakthroughs. Top executives from both organizations met at the TCS flagship campus in Siruseri, Chennai, today to formally commence the expanded partnership between the two companies.

The NetApp-TCS COE is a significant joint investment between both companies and will be used to train and certify TCS associates on NetApp storage technologies and joint customer engagements globally. The NetApp Global Residency Program will extend the team of NetApp trained personnel that enable customers to optimize their investments in NetApp solutions that deliver outstanding customer experiences. Through the NetApp-TCS COE and the NetApp Global Residency Program, NetApp will leverage TCS’s capabilities in infrastructure services and storage capabilities to develop and deliver solutions for enterprise customers around the world. The NetApp-TCS COE will also function as an extension of the TCS Storage Center of Excellence based in Lucknow, India, and will serve as a platform to develop and showcase TCS and NetApp industry-leading solutions.

"The expansion of our global strategic alliance with TCS will enable more companies to achieve the storage-efficiency benefits delivered by NetApp solutions," said Tom Georgens, president and chief operating officer at NetApp. "By expanding the number of service professionals trained on NetApp technologies, we can help more customers creatively and cost-effectively address their business requirements."

"We are always looking to enhance the services we provide to our customers around the world," said P. R. Krishnan, VP and global head of TCS’s Infrastructure Services. "Our growing strategic partnership with NetApp is a perfect example of how we are bringing synergies together with their storage and data management expertise and our vast infrastructure services experience. The results for customers are greater efficiencies for their IT infrastructure while continuing to ensure a level of certainty in their operations."

This partnership enhances TCS’s competency in managing complex storage infrastructure while centralizing the deployment of professional services for NetApp customers that augment enterprise customers’ IT staff. Under this program, TCS is building a consolidated and scalable managed services team that NetApp can deploy as on-site resident engineers to manage their customers’ NetApp and related storage infrastructure. The buildout of this team will take advantage of the investment that both companies have made in the NetApp-TCS COE in Siruseri. The investment will also help develop joint go-to-market solutions in key storage infrastructure areas and build stronger NetApp storage expertise within the TCS Infrastructure Services business.

These two new initiatives are built on a well-established existing partnership between NetApp and TCS. TCS already leverages NetApp’s storage solutions as its underlying infrastructure for the SMB software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions market, where TCS is able to exploit the high operating efficiency and low ownership costs afforded by the underlying NetApp storage infrastructure. Additionally, both companies have joint go-to-market teams in the United States, India, and other large markets focusing on helping companies reduce the cost of their IT infrastructure, an imperative in these challenging economic times.