Authors:

Aung Oo, Vice President Azure Storage Product Management

Parker Leavitt, Partner Account Manager, AHEAD

Special thanks to:

Michael Johnson, Vice President, Cloud, AHEAD

AHEAD background

AHEAD was formed in 2007 and possesses deep expertise in Infrastructure, Cloud Platforms, AI, Analytics, Networking, Storage, Security and many more technical disciplines. 80% of AHEAD’s employees are engineers who help customers with the assessment of their needs to design optimal solutions and through implementation of complex application and infrastructure deployments. Headquartered in Chicago, IL, AHEAD has locations worldwide and is ready to assist with your most complex Azure projects. They hold over 1,000 Microsoft certifications and 4 Advanced Specializations.

Valued collaboration

AHEAD has been a key advisor to Azure Storage throughout the design and build of our Channel strategy. As a premier Microsoft Cloud and AI Partner, and with decades of Storage expertise, AHEAD helped us to create the Learning Path channel partners will need to complete to qualify as a Strategic Azure Storage Services Partner (SASS). SASS Partners have been validated by us to possess the skills to offer consulting, design, implementation, and migration services to Azure and ISV Storage services.

What can you expect?

AHEAD brings their history of infrastructure expertise to Azure Storage customers through a catalog of services that make it possible to select the optimal solution to ensure the ideal blend of price, performance, and resiliency.

Assessment

What are you doing to prepare for the industry wide memory shortage? How well do you understand your datasets? What are your performance requirements? Are there features you are paying for and not using? When was the last time that directory hosting the “Super Important Project” files was accessed? Is there mission critical data hiding that you should be leveraging to fuel Enterprise AI Agents? Is an Azure Storage Service the best fit for your data, or is it better to migrate it to one of our Storage ISV services?

AHEAD provides Microsoft-funded assessments that deliver data-driven guidance to help you align your application and data set needs with the ideal storage service(s) on Azure. We have long advocated that the best solution is the one that meets your requirements both today and in the future. AHEAD can help you get there.

Migration

After gaining insight into your data estate, AHEAD has the experience to help you migrate safely with best-of-breed solutions. Whether offline migration with Data Box or online over the network with Storage Mover or one of our validated ISVs like Komprise, Cirrus Data, or Cirata, AHEAD can help you move your data to an Azure Storage service like Blob Storage, Files, Elastic SAN, or NetApp Files – or one of our ISV Partners like Nasuni and Pure Storage. You can find our full list of validated partners on Microsoft Learn.

Azure Storage ISV Strength

An important reason we chose to onboard AHEAD as our first Strategic Channel Partner was the large crossover in mutual ISV relationships they possess, and their proven skills with each. You can view AHEAD’s full list of partners, including Nasuni, NetApp, Everpure, Commvault, Veeam, Rubrik, and Dell on their website. Our recent engagements with AHEAD and Nasuni are a great example of AHEAD’s depth. They were able to quickly determine Nasuni as the best fit for a customer who required a single centralized Azure-based repository for their data that could then be accessed within Azure and multiple remote locations simultaneously.

AHEAD has shown us that across their portfolio of ISVs, they can help you implement best-of-breed ISV services that include solutions in:

• Air Gap Business Continuity
• VMware Modernization
• Storage Modernization
• Cloud Scale Analytics
• AI Dataset Curation

How can you move forward?

Do you need help understanding your data estate? Could you use expertise selecting the ideal service in Azure to host your data? Reach out to the AHEAD Azure team at info@ahead.com or via their Rapid Assess offer on Microsoft Marketplace and get started today!

Strategic Azure Storage Services Partner

In coming months, you will see our list of SASS Channel Partners expand, but we could not be more grateful to AHEAD for being a not only a pioneer, but a trusted advisor. Their commitment to Azure and Azure customers has made an impact that will benefit our customers worldwide.