Home > Resources > Articles > 10 B2B SaaS Marketing Strategies for 2021 to Ace the Race

10 B2B SaaS Marketing Strategies for 2021 to Ace the Race

B2B SaaS Marketing Strategies
After the pandemic hit us in 2020, most businesses have gradually shifted from physical or in-person interactions to a virtual platform. The situation accelerated the demand for better collaboration tools such as Software as a Service (SaaS). As a result, SaaS organizations offering all-inclusive services aim to grow in the coming years. Many organizations are leveraging the advantages of B2B SaaS marketing to sustain and excel at the competitive edge. During a conversation with Media 7, Stacey Witt, the Chief Marketing Officer at LoadSpring, said, “Our vendors and partners understand the agility and flexibility of our cloud platform and want their applications to be SaaS-enabled.”

SaaS businesses offer services starting from user authentication technology to cloud infrastructure. According to Gartner, Software as a service (SaaS) will remain the principal market segment, which is forecasted to grow to $ 151.1 Billion in 2021. Hence, 2021 is the best time to explore the benefits of SaaS and improve the marketing strategies to occupy a more significant share of the flourishing global market.

What is B2B SaaS Marketing?

B2B SaaS stands for business-to-business Software-as-a-Service. B2B SaaS is a cloud-based software distribution model used by businesses for numerous operations such as accounting, office productivity, customer relationship management (CRM), and other work-related activities. It is licensed software available on a subscription basis from a third-party provider, which hosts the applications and allows access to the customers through the internet. B2B SaaS Marketing is simply the technique used to market SaaS.  As a flexible, scalable, and cost-efficient platform, SaaS triggers the attention of businesses to enter the market. Salesforce, the popular customer relationship management (CRM) tool, is the ideal example of a SaaS company.

SaaS companies have experienced a significant surge in client acquisition since the beginning of the pandemic and expect a steady rise in the future. Earlier, the marketers have focused on experimenting latest trends for business growth, but now considering its increasing demand across various businesses, a strategic approach is the need of the hour. Suppose you have not prepared your B2B SaaS marketing strategy yet in 2021. In that case, it is high time to start now by selecting the technics that are proven and can yield effective results by converting your marketing efforts highest rates possible.

10 Imperative B2B SaaS Marketing Strategies for 2021

According to BetterCloud, today, entrepreneurs of all sizes estimate that 70% of the business apps they use are SaaS-based. However, the forecast says that the numbers will rise to 85% by 2025.

SaaS platforms have made their products more scalable and subscription-based to handle the rising demand. However, if your SaaS marketing efforts are not up to the mark, your product can get lost in the mass. Here are the ten critical SaaS growth strategies to help you contend, survive, stay relevant, and succeed in the competitive world.

Emphasize Competitor Analysis

Competitor analysis is one of the essential parameters for preparing marketing strategies, and SaaS Marketing is no exception. It helps identify the major competitors and study their product, sales, marketing, and customer retention strategies. Competitor analysis will help you to develop better practices than your competitors and expand accordingly. By performing competitor analysis, you can identify the product's unique value proposition and stay updated on the latest trends. It also helps to analyze competitor's actions for better performance. As a result, you can assess and identify areas of betterment and opportunities in the market. Additionally, you can track the customer reviews on the products of your competitors and identify the gaps.

Focus on SaaS Content Marketing

Posting engaging content has a direct or indirect impact on your marketing outcome. A robust content marketing strategy helps create brand awareness, connect with the prospects, improve ranking, establish domain knowledge, and boost traffic engagement ratio. The tone of confidence in your content can help you gain customer reliance and be a potential gamechanger in a challenging SaaS ecosystem. In addition, you can use reprocessed content to target diverse audiences.

According to the ProfitWell study, SaaS companies that use content marketing experience 30% higher growth rates and 5-10% better retaining capacities. To ensure a robust SaaS content marketing strategy, you should:
  • Regularly update your content
Compelling and engaging content helps to nurture leads. To accommodate the challenges and demand fluctuations in 2020, many brands updated their content strategy to accentuate credibility, empathy, and value. Moreover, since social media use has increased noticeably due to the pandemic, organizations have also modified their communication strategy on social media. Updating current blog posts with latest information will benefit your SaaS marketing efforts and boost them on different networks to gain traffic. Insightful and up-to-date content also drives social media subscribers and followers.
  • Study your target’s preference
The more you know your target audience, the better way you can design content. Therefore, it is significant to segregate the targets based on their preferences to get relevant information and messages and successfully build subscribed audience database. You can also study their content preferences by collecting customer data to plan an effective marketing strategy for B2B SaaS.
  • Track your SaaS Content marketing performance
After content preparation, tracking the performance of your creation is vital. This performance analysis will help to change your content strategy for better lead generation. You can use Google Analytics to determine the lead generation and conversion path post you have set your goals. You can also use Google Analytics to measure the performance of your content by analyzing the sequence of users' actions on your website.

Implement and Maintain Expert SEO Strategy

A robust SEO strategy is a must for a successful B2B SaaS marketing strategy. That is because more than half of all website traffic comes from organic searches on Google. To ensure your SaaS platform is trust-worthy and index-worthy, you need to consider three types of SEO marketing strategy:
  • Technical SEO: Technical SEO refers to optimizing the on-site HTML components to allow Google crawlers to locate and index your website pages easily. It also makes your SEO performance effective by good loading speed.
  • On-Page SEO: Creating keyword-rich, compelling, and valuable content comes under the on-page SEO strategy. It helps Google crawlers understand the subject of your page so that they can be precisely indexed for relevant search queries.
  • Off-Page SEO: Improving your site's backlink profile is related to the off-page SEO strategy for B2B SaaS marketing so that Google identifies it as a highly authoritative and trustworthy source.

Implementing an SEO strategy is only the primary step. However, the only means to maintain search engine rankings is to constantly optimize your website according to the latest ranking criteria.

Optimize PPC Campaign

Advertising is one of the best and beneficial digital marketing tactics for SaaS marketers. Investing in Google and social media ads is a good idea if you have a decent marketing budget but not enough organic reach. You can target prospects through advertising, and with the right deal, you can get an assured ROI.

To optimize your PPC campaign, you need to run an A/B test for best placement, copy keywords, and target the right audience. Further, your ads should be keyword-enriched for better visibility on search engine result pages. Then, you can use PPC tools to expand visibility. In addition, you need to track your ad performance and reform your strategies if required. Above all, your ads should convey the value proposition and include compelling calls-to-action (CTAs) to drive the visitor's action.

Attractive Website is the key

Your website is one of the most vital marketing assets, and developing a dynamic website is the primary stepping stone for planning a robust marketing strategy. It is the face of your brand and the center of all your activities. Without a good website, your SaaS organization will face issues with conversion rates. As websites play a critical role in promoting the value of your product, it is amongst essential SaaS marketing techniques. Further, when you combine marketing goals with sales strategy, you clarify what will make it best for your SaaS business. If your website is attracting a lot of qualified traffic, it can proportionately increase the conversion list.

Create an ABM (Account-Based Marketing) Strategy

Account-Based-Marketing (ABM) helps organizations to grow in the market. An ABM strategy allows you to identify targets, create an email database, send targeted emails, ads, direct mail, and share success stories. Account-based marketing ensures that the marketers connect with pre-qualified leads and interact with them on a personalized level. With account-based marketing, marketers can gather volumes of information on each business and communicate with them based on their earlier activities.

SaaS Lead Generation and Conversion

Lead generation is one of the most significant yet most challenging parts of any SaaS business. Whatever strategies you implicate should head towards generating workable leads for your business. If your plan is not good enough to generate leads, you will not get new customers, and subsequently, your SaaS business will not grow. The lead generation technique for B2B SaaS is different from other marketing techniques because the product here does not have a physical existence. Hence, prospects have a choice of multiple alternatives on the internet. Inevitably, planning a robust lead generation tactic is crucial for B2B SaaS marketing.

Along with other marketing strategies, encouraging referrals and optimizing freemium strategy bring highly impactful results. When people decide to make a purchase, 88% of consumers trust the recommendations from family, friends, and colleagues. Viva-voce publicity can earn you many referrals and increase your sign-ups. In addition, freemium products always gain attraction. According to the global IT workforce management and optimization company, Blue Tree, 44% of SaaS companies offer a free demo. You can provide a core understanding of your product, yet you don't want to share so much away that most of your audience loses interest and drift away. Also, you must ease it out for freemium users to submit suggestions or report bugs, and you can utilize that information to optimize your overall marketing strategy.

Improve Your SaaS Pricing Structure

The pricing structure is one of the significant elements in SaaS marketing. It would help if you experiment with the prices based on the best for your business and audiences. With the evolution of your business, you need to consider the types of entrepreneurs who use your service and the features that they emphasize.

A well-structured pricing page is beneficial for SaaS marketers that clearly shows the required information for the target audiences to complete the conversion process. For example, if you offer a discount/deal/money-back guarantee, make sure it is in bold terms on the top of the page. Further, you can also include time-limited clauses to create urgency and intensify conversions.

Get Reviewed on Top Third-Party Review Sites

According to G2 and Heinz Marketing, 92% of B2B buyers mostly purchase after reading a trusted review. B2B SaaS marketing teams must pay special attention to this because customers rely on crucial reviews for efficient decision-making before investing. Businesses refer to sites like G2 when they are researching products. These sites provide reviews from similar entrepreneurs and attract high-intent buyers who will eventually make a purchase decision. These sites let them learn about their experiences so they can find the best fit for their brand. Make sure to list your business page on any relevant review site and optimize your information and meta description with keywords related to your brand.

Collaboration is Critical

Merging your marketing resources with a peer entrepreneur can increase business growth for both of your brands. Collaboration in the B2B SaaS marketplace can be a cost-effective way of enhancing your business and reaping long-term benefits. Here are some ways of collaboration:
  • Co-marketing: When two or more brands jointly promote a content piece, special offer, or an event, it is known as co-marketing. This form of collaboration helps you to expand your reach to new communities through new channels. Further, it allows you to gain more social media followers or newsletter subscriptions.
  • Partner or reseller: Partnering with businesses with similar customer bases can be risky if your organization has a limited number of internal sales resources. The successful SaaS partner programs must include free joining, co-marketing support, and a partner portal to manage relationships. If your partners are satisfied, they might just become your most active community members.
  • Event Partnership: Due to the impact of the pandemic on social gatherings, the events space has experienced more disruption since last year. Although event partnerships existed before Covid-19, the protocols and formats have changed, in 2021. It is vital for businesses to either organize or participate in an event to reach audiences. An event partner can promote your brand through their marketing channels.

Conclusion

The SaaS marketplace is a competitive arena, and with robust B2B SaaS marketing techniques, you can elevate your business. Deloitte says, 93% of CIOs have adopted or planning to adopt cloud SaaS. Further, due to the pandemic, SaaS marketers are about to witness advanced ways of connecting with target audiences. With the 10 SaaS marketing tactics discussed in this article, you can amplify the number of visitors to your website and enhance the possibility to produce a higher ROI and expand the client base. Tracking the performances of these strategies is also significant to optimize them for even better results in SaaS marketing and customer retention.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is SaaS so effective?

SaaS is a cost-efficient, easy to maintain, flexible, agile and scalable cloud platform. SaaS applications consume less bandwidth enabling optimum time-management capability. Further, the SaaS vendors handle the maintenance responsibilities, which reduces work hours and downtime. Additionally, web-based usability allows access to SaaS easily from any location with internet connectivity.

How do companies use SaaS?

SaaS, or software as a service, is a cloud-based centrally hosted software delivery model. SaaS applications are licensed to customers via a subscription plan. A SaaS company allows the application to be accessed over the internet by maintaining servers, databases, and software. The users can access the software from anywhere in any device.

Spotlight

ThreatTrack Security

It is powered by the world's most sophisticated security technologies that protect millions of users from today’s top online threats, including ransomware, Zero-days and other malware that easily evades traditional antivirus. Backed by cutting-edge artificial intelligence, one of the world’s largest threat intelligence clouds and real-time behavior monitoring.

OTHER ARTICLES
Cloud Deployment Models, Cloud Storage

What Is Cloud-Native and Why Does it Matter for CI

Article | February 27, 2024

Continuous intelligence (CI) relies on the real-time analysis of streaming data to produce actionable insights in milliseconds to seconds. Such capabilities have applications throughout a business. In today’s dynamic marketplace, new CI applications that use data from various sources at any given time might be needed on very short notice.The challenge is how to have the flexibility to rapidly develop and deploy new CI applications to meet fast-changing business requirements. A common approach employed today is to use a dynamic architecture that delivers access to data, processing power, and analytics capabilities on demand. In the future, solutions also will likely incorporate artificial intelligence applications to complement the benefits of traditional analytics. Increasingly, cloud-native is the architecture of choice to build and deploy AI-embedded CI applications. A cloud-native approach offers benefits to both the business and developers. Cloud-native applications or services are loosely coupled with explicitly described dependencies.

Read More
Cloud Security, Cloud App Management, AWS Management

Why Microsoft Should Spinoff Its Cloud Business

Article | August 14, 2023

Microsoft currently features old-school solutions that are growing relatively slowly (Office and Windows) and new cloud solutions that are growing tremendously (Dynamics 365 and Azure). If the company stays in its current form, Microsoft stock will keep steadily advancing. But because the company’s total top and bottom lines are never going to increase much more than 30% or 35% per year, the shares are never going to deliver truly huge returns. But that would change if the company was to spin off its rapidly growing cloud businesses. In such a scenario, the current owners of Microsoft stock would receive shares in a cutting edge cloud services company (let’s call it Azure), and shares in a company focused on providing old, mostly PC-based software to businesses and consumers.

Read More
Cloud Storage

Intelligence Giant Upgrading its Cloud Technology

Article | February 20, 2024

With the huge amounts of data in all fields, a future in the cloud is imperative to help deal with this explosion of data, especially in the field of intelligence technology. This is the reason why the US Central Intelligence Agency is updating its cloud technology. The agency has recently released a draft request for proposal for its Commercial Cloud Enterprise contract.The C2E tens of billions contract will be a multi-award commercial cloud computing contract with a five-year base period and two five-year options for a period of performance of up to 15 years, according to nextgov.com.In a March 2019 presentation by the Directorate of Digital Innovation, a division of the CIA, the department outlined its vision for C2E. It would be broad and include infrastructure, platform and software cloud services supporting a broad range of users, with a variety of security clearances and a worldwide presence, as reported by techcrunch.com. The principal C2E Program objective is to acquire cloud computing services directly from commercial cloud service providers with established records for innovation and operational excellence in cloud service delivery for a large customer base,the department stated in the presentation.Apparently, the agency prefers to avoid all the attention that the Pentagon’s JEDI cloud procurement process got, and quietly go about its business.

Read More

AWS tags US$235 million to expand its cloud infrastructure in Latin America

Article | February 10, 2020

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is raising its stake on cloud computing infrastructure in Latin America. Proof of this is that the IT company will use R$1 billion (around US$235 million) to expand its data center in Sao Paulo. These millions will be used for its Data Processing Center located in that part of Brazil. In addition, a portion of these US$235 million will also be used to increase the services it offers to both public and private parties.The move gives reason to suggest that AWS is upping the ante in the future of startups and tech in the region that rely on cloud services to develop their own products.It launched its cloud center in Brazil in 2011 but it’ll be getting some beefing up thanks to these funds. Moreover, AWS has two Edge networks in São Paulo and two in Rio de Janeiro. As well as one in each of the following cities: Bogotá (Colombia), Buenos Aires (Argentina), and Santiago (Chile).The objective of all of this is to be the region’s prime provider of cloud infrastructure and beat out its competition AKA, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft’s Azure.

Read More
Cloud Deployment Models, Cloud Storage

10 Data Warehouse Best Practices to Save Colossal Extra Costs

Article | February 27, 2024

Continuous intelligence (CI) relies on the real-time analysis of streaming data to produce actionable insights in milliseconds to seconds. Such capabilities have applications throughout a business. In today’s dynamic marketplace, new CI applications that use data from various sources at any given time might be needed on very short notice.The challenge is how to have the flexibility to rapidly develop and deploy new CI applications to meet fast-changing business requirements. A common approach employed today is to use a dynamic architecture that delivers access to data, processing power, and analytics capabilities on demand. In the future, solutions also will likely incorporate artificial intelligence applications to complement the benefits of traditional analytics. Increasingly, cloud-native is the architecture of choice to build and deploy AI-embedded CI applications. A cloud-native approach offers benefits to both the business and developers. Cloud-native applications or services are loosely coupled with explicitly described dependencies.

Read More
Cloud Security, Cloud App Management, AWS Management

Top 15 Cloud Security Certifications to Grow Your Career in Cloud Security

Article | August 14, 2023

Microsoft currently features old-school solutions that are growing relatively slowly (Office and Windows) and new cloud solutions that are growing tremendously (Dynamics 365 and Azure). If the company stays in its current form, Microsoft stock will keep steadily advancing. But because the company’s total top and bottom lines are never going to increase much more than 30% or 35% per year, the shares are never going to deliver truly huge returns. But that would change if the company was to spin off its rapidly growing cloud businesses. In such a scenario, the current owners of Microsoft stock would receive shares in a cutting edge cloud services company (let’s call it Azure), and shares in a company focused on providing old, mostly PC-based software to businesses and consumers.

Read More
Cloud Storage

10 New Innovations in Storage Management for Data Access Control

Article | February 20, 2024

With the huge amounts of data in all fields, a future in the cloud is imperative to help deal with this explosion of data, especially in the field of intelligence technology. This is the reason why the US Central Intelligence Agency is updating its cloud technology. The agency has recently released a draft request for proposal for its Commercial Cloud Enterprise contract.The C2E tens of billions contract will be a multi-award commercial cloud computing contract with a five-year base period and two five-year options for a period of performance of up to 15 years, according to nextgov.com.In a March 2019 presentation by the Directorate of Digital Innovation, a division of the CIA, the department outlined its vision for C2E. It would be broad and include infrastructure, platform and software cloud services supporting a broad range of users, with a variety of security clearances and a worldwide presence, as reported by techcrunch.com. The principal C2E Program objective is to acquire cloud computing services directly from commercial cloud service providers with established records for innovation and operational excellence in cloud service delivery for a large customer base,the department stated in the presentation.Apparently, the agency prefers to avoid all the attention that the Pentagon’s JEDI cloud procurement process got, and quietly go about its business.

Read More

AWS tags US$235 million to expand its cloud infrastructure in Latin America

Article | February 10, 2020

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is raising its stake on cloud computing infrastructure in Latin America. Proof of this is that the IT company will use R$1 billion (around US$235 million) to expand its data center in Sao Paulo. These millions will be used for its Data Processing Center located in that part of Brazil. In addition, a portion of these US$235 million will also be used to increase the services it offers to both public and private parties.The move gives reason to suggest that AWS is upping the ante in the future of startups and tech in the region that rely on cloud services to develop their own products.It launched its cloud center in Brazil in 2011 but it’ll be getting some beefing up thanks to these funds. Moreover, AWS has two Edge networks in São Paulo and two in Rio de Janeiro. As well as one in each of the following cities: Bogotá (Colombia), Buenos Aires (Argentina), and Santiago (Chile).The objective of all of this is to be the region’s prime provider of cloud infrastructure and beat out its competition AKA, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft’s Azure.

Read More
MORE ARTICLES

Spotlight

ThreatTrack Security

It is powered by the world's most sophisticated security technologies that protect millions of users from today’s top online threats, including ransomware, Zero-days and other malware that easily evades traditional antivirus. Backed by cutting-edge artificial intelligence, one of the world’s largest threat intelligence clouds and real-time behavior monitoring.

Related News

Cloud App Management

HPE's GreenLake Breaks the $1 Billion Revenue Mark to Expand its Cloud

Hewlett Packard Enterprise | October 09, 2023

HPE's GreenLake revenue tops $1 billion and offers flexible payment models. GreenLake adds cloud-based backup and recovery as software-as-a-service. HPE launches AI-driven GreenLake for large language models and eyes the Asia-Pacific market. Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) has refined its GreenLake strategy, which was launched in 2017 as a response to the growing demand for IT consumption as a service. GreenLake's annual recurring revenue has now surpassed $1 billion, reflecting the popularity of the pay-as-you-go model for cost control and IT agility. However, in light of higher interest rates and economic uncertainty, organizations are showing decreased interest in pay-as-you-go approaches. As a result, HPE has introduced flexibility by offering GreenLake options through both capital expenditure (capex) and operating expenditure (opex) models, allowing customers to choose how they pay for their infrastructure. HPE has also expanded its GreenLake offerings in the software domain, providing software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, such as backup and disaster recovery, without requiring hardware investments. The platform supports backup and replication of workloads between cloud providers like AWS and Azure without the need for on-premises hardware. Joseph Yang, Managing Director of HPE, Singapore region, reportedly remarked, If you look at the architecture of HPE hardware, it’s becoming more and more like a modern smartphone, which is managed through the cloud, while your data and applications run on your premises. That’s what GreenLake is evolving into. [Source – Computer Weekly] The company is streamlining the management of hybrid infrastructures through GreenLake's infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) management platform. This platform can manage various HPE hardware, including networking equipment, servers, and storage, through the cloud, simplifying tasks like OS provisioning and firmware updates. Regarding data protection, HPE is focusing on helping customers manage their data lifecycles, whether stored on-premises or in the public cloud, through a centralized platform. HPE has also heavily invested in artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. They offer comprehensive AI solutions that cover the entire AI lifecycle, including machine learning data management software. In June 2023, HPE entered the AI cloud market with GreenLake for large language models (LLMs), allowing enterprises to privately train and deploy large-scale AI using supercomputers. Regarding the availability of this service in the Asia-Pacific region, Yang mentioned that market demand and factors like access to renewable energy need to be considered, especially in datacenter hubs like Singapore, where renewable energy sources are limited. Yang emphasized that addressing challenges like renewable energy sources and cooling methods is essential to supporting AI workloads effectively in the region.

Read More

Cloud Security, Cloud App Management, Cloud Deployment Models

Softchoice announces launch of Cloud Cost Optimization, powered by Aria Cost, part of VMware Cross-Cloud managed services

Businesswire | August 22, 2023

Softchoice, a software-focused IT solutions provider in Canada and North America, has announced the addition of Cloud Cost Optimization, powered by VMware Aria Cost, to its managed services portfolio. Part of VMware Cross-Cloud managed services, Cloud Cost Optimization helps customers realize cloud value faster with FinOps, an operational model that brings accountability and clarity to the variable spend model of the cloud. VMware Cross-Cloud managed services is a set of prescriptive offerings for public, private, sovereign and hybrid clouds, cloud-native app delivery, designed to optimize cloud costs and help customers manage multi-cloud operational governance, all built on a common VMware foundation. The services enable customers to rely on expert, specialized managed services partners to drive cost efficiency and interoperability between clouds, data centers, and applications. As a longstanding and reputable VMware partner, Softchoice offers customers faster time-to-value, flexibility to scale up or down as required, along with lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and greater security, each of which enables organizations to invest in cloud growth while reducing complexity and risk at every step. “Modern apps are fueling the next wave of enterprise innovation and driving multi-cloud adoption. Yet, implementing multi-cloud can be complex and costly if not handled properly, with some 76% of multi-cloud organizations report needing to improve control over their cloud costs1,” said Abhay Kumar, VP for Hyperscalers and Technology Partners, VMware. “With their new Cloud Cost Optimization service, Softchoice can help our mutual customers in their aims to simplify financial management, streamline operations, and improve cross-organizational collaboration across their multi-cloud environment.” Delivered as a managed subscription-based service, Softchoice’s Cloud Cost Optimization is designed to help customers maximize the value of every dollar spent in the cloud by adopting FinOps. In line with VMware’s aim to bring clarity to cloud chaos through a cloud-smart approach, Softchoice’s service helps organizations maximize the value from their multi-cloud estates and applications. Chris Swadish, Hybrid Cloud Business Leader at Softchoice, said, “We are excited to offer our customers this Cross-Cloud managed service and support VMware’s vision of helping customers across the world become cloud-smart in their multi-cloud environments. As cloud adoption and innovation becomes a necessity, organizations need a better handle on their costs and risks. Cloud Cost Optimization helps customers both begin and correct their cloud journeys through a systematic, insight-led process designed to offer results at scale. Our work with The FinOps Foundation, technical proficiency, team of experts, and close partnership with VMware means that we can offer customers a more accelerated path to cloud efficiency, while aiming to reduce risk and helping them focus on innovation and growth across all cloud environments.” Softchoice has earned the VMware Managed Services Specialization to attain the VMware Cross-Cloud Managed Service Provider badge and the company’s Cloud Cost Optimization service is a VMware Validated Service Offering (VSO). This provides public confirmation that partner solutions are functionally and architecturally complete. Additionally, Softchoice recently completed the VMware Managed Services Advanced Specialization Audit, showcasing how the company is able to support customers with advanced transformation requirements. “Our proven track record of helping customers manage cloud spend combined with our technical expertise and certifications means we offer a comprehensive service capable of helping customers maximize the value of their cloud investments at any stage of their transformation journey,” Chris added. About Softchoice Softchoice Corporation (TSX: SFTC) is a software-focused IT solutions provider that equips organizations to be agile and innovative, and for their people to be engaged, connected and creative at work. That means moving them to the cloud, helping them build the workplace of tomorrow, and enabling them to make smarter decisions about their technology portfolio. For more information, please visit www.softchoice.com. VMware and Aria are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. and its subsidiaries in the United States and other jurisdictions.

Read More

Cloud Security, Cloud App Management, Cloud Infrastructure Management

Datadog Announces Historical Investigations for Cloud SIEM

Prnewswire | August 08, 2023

Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ: DDOG), the monitoring and security platform for cloud applications, today announced 15 months of data retention for Cloud SIEM, with new detection and exploration capabilities so security teams can conduct historical investigations and uncover threats hidden within their cloud and IT environments. Conducting investigations is time consuming as security teams are constantly importing and archiving older logs to long-term storage. These logs may be spread across multiple environments and geographies for compliance reasons and often must be re-indexed before an investigation can start. Customers may also need to write complex search queries to correlate user activity with other security events to uncover a threat. Datadog Cloud SIEM visualizes security activity across systems or entities—such as users, devices, IP addresses, apps and network connections—within the organization's infrastructure for as far back as 15 months. This new capability enables customers to correlate and uncover embedded threats without having to write custom queries or import log data for every investigation. "Without the ability to retain logs for a long period of time, companies are at risk of missing deep embedded issues that may threaten the availability and integrity of systems, apps, services and data," said Yash Kumar, Senior Director of Product Management, Cloud SIEM, at Datadog. "With Cloud SIEM, security teams now have a time machine to discover hidden threats and malicious activity. They can visualize and correlate events as far back as 15 months, making historical investigations faster and easier." About Datadog Datadog is the observability and security platform for cloud applications. Our SaaS platform integrates and automates infrastructure monitoring, application performance monitoring, log management, real-user monitoring, and many other capabilities to provide unified, real-time observability and security for our customers' entire technology stack. Datadog is used by organizations of all sizes and across a wide range of industries to enable digital transformation and cloud migration, drive collaboration among development, operations, security and business teams, accelerate time to market for applications, reduce time to problem resolution, secure applications and infrastructure, understand user behavior, and track key business metrics.

Read More

Cloud App Management

HPE's GreenLake Breaks the $1 Billion Revenue Mark to Expand its Cloud

Hewlett Packard Enterprise | October 09, 2023

HPE's GreenLake revenue tops $1 billion and offers flexible payment models. GreenLake adds cloud-based backup and recovery as software-as-a-service. HPE launches AI-driven GreenLake for large language models and eyes the Asia-Pacific market. Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) has refined its GreenLake strategy, which was launched in 2017 as a response to the growing demand for IT consumption as a service. GreenLake's annual recurring revenue has now surpassed $1 billion, reflecting the popularity of the pay-as-you-go model for cost control and IT agility. However, in light of higher interest rates and economic uncertainty, organizations are showing decreased interest in pay-as-you-go approaches. As a result, HPE has introduced flexibility by offering GreenLake options through both capital expenditure (capex) and operating expenditure (opex) models, allowing customers to choose how they pay for their infrastructure. HPE has also expanded its GreenLake offerings in the software domain, providing software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, such as backup and disaster recovery, without requiring hardware investments. The platform supports backup and replication of workloads between cloud providers like AWS and Azure without the need for on-premises hardware. Joseph Yang, Managing Director of HPE, Singapore region, reportedly remarked, If you look at the architecture of HPE hardware, it’s becoming more and more like a modern smartphone, which is managed through the cloud, while your data and applications run on your premises. That’s what GreenLake is evolving into. [Source – Computer Weekly] The company is streamlining the management of hybrid infrastructures through GreenLake's infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) management platform. This platform can manage various HPE hardware, including networking equipment, servers, and storage, through the cloud, simplifying tasks like OS provisioning and firmware updates. Regarding data protection, HPE is focusing on helping customers manage their data lifecycles, whether stored on-premises or in the public cloud, through a centralized platform. HPE has also heavily invested in artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. They offer comprehensive AI solutions that cover the entire AI lifecycle, including machine learning data management software. In June 2023, HPE entered the AI cloud market with GreenLake for large language models (LLMs), allowing enterprises to privately train and deploy large-scale AI using supercomputers. Regarding the availability of this service in the Asia-Pacific region, Yang mentioned that market demand and factors like access to renewable energy need to be considered, especially in datacenter hubs like Singapore, where renewable energy sources are limited. Yang emphasized that addressing challenges like renewable energy sources and cooling methods is essential to supporting AI workloads effectively in the region.

Read More

Cloud Security, Cloud App Management, Cloud Deployment Models

Softchoice announces launch of Cloud Cost Optimization, powered by Aria Cost, part of VMware Cross-Cloud managed services

Businesswire | August 22, 2023

Softchoice, a software-focused IT solutions provider in Canada and North America, has announced the addition of Cloud Cost Optimization, powered by VMware Aria Cost, to its managed services portfolio. Part of VMware Cross-Cloud managed services, Cloud Cost Optimization helps customers realize cloud value faster with FinOps, an operational model that brings accountability and clarity to the variable spend model of the cloud. VMware Cross-Cloud managed services is a set of prescriptive offerings for public, private, sovereign and hybrid clouds, cloud-native app delivery, designed to optimize cloud costs and help customers manage multi-cloud operational governance, all built on a common VMware foundation. The services enable customers to rely on expert, specialized managed services partners to drive cost efficiency and interoperability between clouds, data centers, and applications. As a longstanding and reputable VMware partner, Softchoice offers customers faster time-to-value, flexibility to scale up or down as required, along with lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and greater security, each of which enables organizations to invest in cloud growth while reducing complexity and risk at every step. “Modern apps are fueling the next wave of enterprise innovation and driving multi-cloud adoption. Yet, implementing multi-cloud can be complex and costly if not handled properly, with some 76% of multi-cloud organizations report needing to improve control over their cloud costs1,” said Abhay Kumar, VP for Hyperscalers and Technology Partners, VMware. “With their new Cloud Cost Optimization service, Softchoice can help our mutual customers in their aims to simplify financial management, streamline operations, and improve cross-organizational collaboration across their multi-cloud environment.” Delivered as a managed subscription-based service, Softchoice’s Cloud Cost Optimization is designed to help customers maximize the value of every dollar spent in the cloud by adopting FinOps. In line with VMware’s aim to bring clarity to cloud chaos through a cloud-smart approach, Softchoice’s service helps organizations maximize the value from their multi-cloud estates and applications. Chris Swadish, Hybrid Cloud Business Leader at Softchoice, said, “We are excited to offer our customers this Cross-Cloud managed service and support VMware’s vision of helping customers across the world become cloud-smart in their multi-cloud environments. As cloud adoption and innovation becomes a necessity, organizations need a better handle on their costs and risks. Cloud Cost Optimization helps customers both begin and correct their cloud journeys through a systematic, insight-led process designed to offer results at scale. Our work with The FinOps Foundation, technical proficiency, team of experts, and close partnership with VMware means that we can offer customers a more accelerated path to cloud efficiency, while aiming to reduce risk and helping them focus on innovation and growth across all cloud environments.” Softchoice has earned the VMware Managed Services Specialization to attain the VMware Cross-Cloud Managed Service Provider badge and the company’s Cloud Cost Optimization service is a VMware Validated Service Offering (VSO). This provides public confirmation that partner solutions are functionally and architecturally complete. Additionally, Softchoice recently completed the VMware Managed Services Advanced Specialization Audit, showcasing how the company is able to support customers with advanced transformation requirements. “Our proven track record of helping customers manage cloud spend combined with our technical expertise and certifications means we offer a comprehensive service capable of helping customers maximize the value of their cloud investments at any stage of their transformation journey,” Chris added. About Softchoice Softchoice Corporation (TSX: SFTC) is a software-focused IT solutions provider that equips organizations to be agile and innovative, and for their people to be engaged, connected and creative at work. That means moving them to the cloud, helping them build the workplace of tomorrow, and enabling them to make smarter decisions about their technology portfolio. For more information, please visit www.softchoice.com. VMware and Aria are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. and its subsidiaries in the United States and other jurisdictions.

Read More

Cloud Security, Cloud App Management, Cloud Infrastructure Management

Datadog Announces Historical Investigations for Cloud SIEM

Prnewswire | August 08, 2023

Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ: DDOG), the monitoring and security platform for cloud applications, today announced 15 months of data retention for Cloud SIEM, with new detection and exploration capabilities so security teams can conduct historical investigations and uncover threats hidden within their cloud and IT environments. Conducting investigations is time consuming as security teams are constantly importing and archiving older logs to long-term storage. These logs may be spread across multiple environments and geographies for compliance reasons and often must be re-indexed before an investigation can start. Customers may also need to write complex search queries to correlate user activity with other security events to uncover a threat. Datadog Cloud SIEM visualizes security activity across systems or entities—such as users, devices, IP addresses, apps and network connections—within the organization's infrastructure for as far back as 15 months. This new capability enables customers to correlate and uncover embedded threats without having to write custom queries or import log data for every investigation. "Without the ability to retain logs for a long period of time, companies are at risk of missing deep embedded issues that may threaten the availability and integrity of systems, apps, services and data," said Yash Kumar, Senior Director of Product Management, Cloud SIEM, at Datadog. "With Cloud SIEM, security teams now have a time machine to discover hidden threats and malicious activity. They can visualize and correlate events as far back as 15 months, making historical investigations faster and easier." About Datadog Datadog is the observability and security platform for cloud applications. Our SaaS platform integrates and automates infrastructure monitoring, application performance monitoring, log management, real-user monitoring, and many other capabilities to provide unified, real-time observability and security for our customers' entire technology stack. Datadog is used by organizations of all sizes and across a wide range of industries to enable digital transformation and cloud migration, drive collaboration among development, operations, security and business teams, accelerate time to market for applications, reduce time to problem resolution, secure applications and infrastructure, understand user behavior, and track key business metrics.

Read More

Events