By Doug Green

“You’re really selling expertise, judgment and an understanding of the customer’s goals.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Devon Rutherford, Sales Solution Manager at Leaseweb, discusses why MSPs should rethink infrastructure sales around customer workloads rather than around a preferred vendor or platform.

Leaseweb is an infrastructure-as-a-service provider offering colocation, private and public cloud, dedicated servers, security services and other infrastructure solutions.

Rutherford says the MSP market has changed because customers can now buy cloud and infrastructure services directly from a wide range of providers.

That means the real value of the MSP increasingly lies in expertise.

“The customer can go buy the infrastructure,” Rutherford says. “What they need from the MSP is help understanding where the workload should actually live.”

That may mean avoiding the temptation to place every workload onto the platform that offers the best margin or partner incentive.

Different workloads have different requirements.

An AI inference workload may need to be close to the end user. A stable application may run more economically on bare metal. Other workloads may need public cloud elasticity, object storage, CDN services or specialized compliance controls.

That naturally leads toward hybrid infrastructure.

Rutherford says the MSP’s role is increasingly to understand the business objective, regulatory requirements, performance needs and economics of each workload and then assemble the appropriate infrastructure.

That consultative approach can also create recurring revenue.

Instead of treating infrastructure placement as a one-time project, MSPs can establish regular reviews with customers to determine whether workloads are still in the right environment as requirements change.

“Infrastructure is highly commoditized,” Rutherford says. “Consultative expertise isn’t.”

For MSPs planning for the year ahead, his recommendation is to follow the workload rather than the vendor.

That can strengthen customer trust while positioning the MSP as the ongoing adviser responsible for making the different pieces of a hybrid environment work together.

Leaseweb supports that approach with infrastructure options across bare metal, cloud, storage and colocation, along with engineers who can work directly with partners and customers on architecture decisions.

Visit Leaseweb.com to learn more.

“The networks may change dramatically behind the scenes, but calls still need to connect reliably.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Connie Hartman, Director of Product Management at TNS, discusses the ongoing transition from legacy TDM and PSTN infrastructure to all-IP communications—and the routing, interconnection and reliability challenges that come with it.

TNS is a global communications technology company supporting wireless, wireline and VoIP operators across call routing, interconnection, numbering intelligence, fraud prevention and call authentication. The company analyzes roughly 1.9 billion call events every day.

Hartman says the industry cannot simply switch off the legacy network.

During the transition, TDM and IP environments will continue to coexist, requiring carriers to understand where calls should go and how they should be routed across different interconnection environments.

That makes the evolution of the LERG Routing Guide particularly important.

The industry has traditionally relied on the LERG as an authoritative source of routing information. TNS is now evolving that framework so carriers can publish and access IP routing information while continuing to support legacy routing during the migration.

“The goal is to give carriers a practical migration path rather than forcing the industry to rebuild everything from scratch,” Hartman says.

The FCC is also working with the industry on the move toward an all-IP future. Hartman says the transition must address much more than retiring old switches.

Network resilience, public safety, accessibility, numbering, robocall mitigation and operational governance all need to continue functioning throughout the transition.

TNS is supporting that migration with managed routing, voice peering, call authentication, fraud mitigation, STIR/SHAKEN, E911, N11 and 988 capabilities.

Hartman expects IP routing and interconnection to remain major industry and regulatory topics through 2027 and beyond, particularly for smaller and regional carriers that need a transition model that works without requiring a disruptive rip-and-replace approach.

Ultimately, she says, success will mean making the transition largely invisible to the customer.

Visit TNSI.com to learn more.

“Now that you have all this data, what do you actually need to do with it?”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Philip Martin, Vice President of Product at SmarTrak.ai, discusses how the company is helping Cisco partners manage renewals, subscriptions, refresh cycles and customer lifecycle opportunities with AI.

SmarTrak.ai is an AI-native lifecycle platform built for channel partners. Rather than simply organizing the large volumes of data available from Cisco, the platform is designed to identify the next best action a partner should take with a customer.

Martin says Cisco provides partners with an extraordinary amount of useful data, but turning that information into action has historically required substantial manual effort.

AI changes that equation.

SmarTrak can help partners identify upcoming renewals, hardware refresh opportunities, adoption gaps, security considerations and professional services needs, then organize those insights around specific customers.

That capability is becoming more important as Martin sees a major infrastructure refresh cycle accelerating across the market.

“The timeline has compressed,” Martin says. “Partners don’t have six or eight months to put all of this together anymore.”

He argues that enterprises are facing a relatively short window to modernize infrastructure for growing AI, security and capacity requirements. For Cisco partners, that creates both urgency and opportunity.

SmarTrak is also expanding how partners access those insights.

The company recently launched a mobile application that can generate customer-specific playbooks using current telemetry and lifecycle data. SmarTrak is also developing API and MCP capabilities designed to make its intelligence available through the AI tools partners already use.

The objective, Martin says, is to put actionable customer intelligence wherever the partner needs it rather than requiring users to continually return to another application.

For Cisco partners, the message is clear: the infrastructure opportunity is significant, but capturing it will require faster and more precise customer decisions.

Visit SmarTrak.ai to learn more.

“We’re not here for today. We’re here for tomorrow.”

In this special Technology Reseller News and ITAD Association podcast, Sarkes Mkrdichian of TechBros discusses the company’s evolution from break-fix and managed services into IT asset disposition, and how AI, compliance and community involvement are shaping its growth.

TechBros began nearly 20 years ago in break-fix services, later expanded into managed services, and over the past several years has built out a growing ITAD operation.

Mkrdichian says compliance is central to the company’s strategy. TechBros has invested heavily in certifications and recently added ISO 42001, focused on AI management systems.

The company is also using agentic AI internally.

Its AI tools can connect with ERP systems, email and other business platforms to build a knowledge base, identify patterns, assist with forecasting and support marketing and operational decisions.

“We want to be a step ahead,” Mkrdichian says.

That approach extends to TechBros’ workforce. With a relatively young team, Mkrdichian says the company is focused on building processes and technology that can support long-term growth.

Community involvement is another major part of the strategy.

TechBros works with organizations including Big Brothers Big Sisters, Make-A-Wish and other nonprofits, and in some customer relationships it can structure revenue-share models that direct a portion of proceeds toward charitable organizations.

For enterprise customers, Mkrdichian says TechBros focuses on efficiency, data security and long-term relationships rather than one-time transactions.

For MSPs and channel partners, the company offers flexible models that can range from direct client referrals to fully integrated ITAD programs.

TechBros can handle data erasure, chain of custody, asset processing and resale while allowing the MSP to maintain the primary customer relationship.

Mkrdichian also encourages organizations to think carefully about data destruction. In some cases, verified erasure can provide better traceability than destruction alone, while customers with stricter requirements can combine erasure with physical destruction.

As a new member of the ITAD Association, Mkrdichian says he is also looking to build relationships with other ITAD providers.

“Let’s see how we can work together and build this industry,” he says.

Visit TechBrosAZ.com to learn more, or TechBrosCares.com to learn about the company’s community programs.

“If you buy something, you own it—and you should be able to fix it.”

In this special Technology Reseller News and ITAD Association podcast, Willie Cade of Graceful Solutions discusses the growing right-to-repair movement and why the debate is expanding beyond hardware repair into software, data ownership and control.

Cade has spent much of his career in technology refurbishment and now works with law firms on right-to-repair matters. He also serves on the board of Repair.org.

For Cade, the core principle is straightforward: ownership should include the ability to repair equipment and access the software necessary to keep it operating.

That issue has become particularly important in agriculture, where modern tractors can contain dozens of processors and increasingly depend on software, diagnostics and data.

Cade discusses ongoing litigation involving John Deere and argues that repair restrictions can create significant costs for farmers, especially when equipment failures occur during narrow planting or harvesting windows.

But he says the larger issue may be data.

Modern agricultural equipment can generate substantial volumes of operational data. Cade argues that questions around who owns that information, who can use it and whether the equipment owner can benefit from it are becoming as important as the right to repair the machine itself.

“The second harvest is data,” Cade says.

The same questions apply well beyond agriculture.

From smartphones and servers to switches and other IT equipment, Cade says manufacturers can retain significant control after the sale through software restrictions, parts pairing and other mechanisms.

That makes right to repair increasingly relevant to ITAD providers, MSPs and channel partners whose businesses depend on extending equipment life, refurbishing assets and maintaining customer infrastructure.

AI adds another dimension.

As businesses generate more data through AI applications, Cade says organizations should be asking not only where their data resides, but whether they actually control and own what is being created.

For MSPs and ITAD providers, that creates a broader advisory opportunity around ownership, repairability, data rights and long-term control of technology assets.

Cade says these issues will continue to evolve as states and federal lawmakers consider new approaches to repair and data ownership.

Visit Repair.org to learn more about the right-to-repair movement.

By Doug Green

“Sovereignty really means control—control of your data, where it resides and whether you can move it.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Tim Mandell of Leaseweb expands on the recent TR article, “Sovereignty Is Becoming a Business Strategy – Not Just a Compliance Requirement,” and explains why data sovereignty is quickly becoming an MSP and channel opportunity.

Mandell says sovereignty goes well beyond simply knowing where data is stored.

The bigger questions are who controls the data, who can access it, what jurisdiction applies and whether an organization can move that data when business or regulatory requirements change.

Compliance, he says, may represent a snapshot in time. Sovereignty is about maintaining control as conditions change.

That challenge is becoming more important as businesses have spent years moving workloads and information into the cloud—sometimes without knowing exactly where that data ultimately resides.

AI adds another layer of complexity.

Organizations are creating and storing rapidly growing volumes of conversations, logs, training information and other data. That raises new questions about who can access the information, where it is being processed and whether the organization can retrieve or relocate it later.

For MSPs, Mandell sees an opportunity to ask customers a simple question:

“If you needed to move your most important data tomorrow, could you?”

If the answer is no—or “I don’t know”—the MSP has an opportunity to help.

Mandell also cautions against vendor concentration risk. Putting everything with one provider may simplify purchasing, but different workloads and different types of data can require different levels of security, performance, cost and control.

That is one reason Leaseweb continues to advocate hybrid infrastructure.

Some data may belong in the public cloud, some on bare metal, some at the edge and some in highly controlled environments.

“The technology should follow the business outcome,” Mandell says.

For MSPs, sovereignty therefore becomes another part of the trusted-advisor conversation: helping customers maintain flexibility, avoid unnecessary lock-in and design infrastructure that can change as their business changes.

Read “Sovereignty Is Becoming a Business Strategy – Not Just a Compliance Requirement” on Technology Reseller News, and visit Leaseweb.com to learn more.

“The question is becoming less about how fast the network is and more about whether the customer had a great experience.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Janelle Morse of SCTE TechExpo previews the upcoming Atlanta event and discusses how the long-running broadband conference is expanding beyond traditional network technologies into AI, cloud, streaming, convergence and autonomous operations.

TechExpo brings together the people who build, operate and evolve broadband networks, including operators, engineers, vendors and technology leaders.

Morse says the event is increasingly focused on how different access technologies—fiber, DOCSIS, Wi-Fi, mobile and even satellite—work together to create a seamless customer experience.

AI will be a major theme.

Sessions will examine predictive service assurance, network diagnostics, fault detection, edge AI and agentic AI, including the longer-term goal of creating networks that can identify and potentially resolve problems before customers are aware of them.

That also raises important questions around governance.

“How do you govern that? Where does the human stay in the loop, and where do you establish the guardrails?” Morse says.

TechExpo is also broadening the ecosystem represented at the event. AMC Global Media is joining as a co-host, reflecting the growing convergence between broadband infrastructure, streaming and entertainment.

The event will also address network security and physical infrastructure threats through SCTE’s STRIKE initiative—Strategic Threat Response and Infrastructure Knowledge Exchange—which brings operators together to share intelligence and best practices around theft, vandalism and intentional damage.

For attendees, Morse recommends combining the main-stage vision with deeper technical sessions, hands-on bootcamps, the exhibition floor and informal networking.

More than 250 exhibitors are expected, along with focused meetups and training around areas including DOCSIS and fiber.

“The biggest takeaway from an event can sometimes come from an unexpected conversation,” Morse says.

Visit SCTE.org to learn more about SCTE TechExpo and registration.

By Doug Green

“Your opportunity to demonstrate value is to show that you understand what happens to the data.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Eli Lahr, Senior Solutions Engineer at Leaseweb, expands on a recent TR article examining one of the less discussed challenges of AI infrastructure: the data created around the workload itself.

Leaseweb is an infrastructure-as-a-service provider offering bare metal, cloud hosting, object storage and network services. Lahr says much of the AI infrastructure conversation has centered on GPUs, but MSPs should be paying equally close attention to data.

AI workloads do not simply consume training data. They also generate logs, artifacts, backups, metadata and other information that continues to grow as projects scale.

That can quickly expose infrastructure bottlenecks.

“The minimum amount of data for some training sets is now measured in petabytes,” Lahr says. “The question becomes where all of that data goes and how quickly you can get it back.”

For MSPs, the answer is not simply more storage.

Different data has different requirements. Some information needs extremely low latency and fast access, while logs or backups may be better suited to less expensive storage tiers.

The challenge is putting the right data in the right place, at the right speed and at the right cost.

Lahr also points to “data gravity.” As datasets grow, moving them between providers or locations becomes increasingly expensive and time-consuming. That makes decisions about where data is stored—and how close it is to compute—an important part of AI infrastructure planning.

For MSPs, that creates an opportunity to move beyond simply supplying infrastructure.

Customers may already know which GPUs they want. The channel partner can add value by understanding what happens when the project succeeds: how much data it will generate, where bottlenecks may appear and how the architecture will scale.

“Ask what problem you’re solving and what success actually looks like,” Lahr says.

Leaseweb combines automated infrastructure services with access to engineers who can work directly with customers and partners on those architecture decisions.

Visit Leaseweb.com to learn more.

“Why leave money on the table when you can help the customer at the same time?”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Elie Y. Katz, CEO of National Retail Solutions (NRS), discusses how technology is transforming independent convenience stores, restaurants, liquor stores and other small retailers—and why that creates an opportunity for MSPs and channel partners.

NRS provides point-of-sale, payment, inventory, loyalty, e-commerce, delivery and security tools designed specifically for independent retailers.

Katz says the company’s sweet spot is the one- or two-store operator that needs many of the same capabilities as a large chain but does not have a large IT staff.

The NRS platform can help merchants manage inventory, monitor sales, receive customized low-stock alerts and integrate with delivery services including Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub.

That integration can have a direct impact on revenue. Katz points to his own restaurant, where adding delivery services is now generating several additional orders per day.

NRS also helps retailers address shrink and employee theft. Its point-of-sale system can integrate with video surveillance and generate alerts around activity such as canceled transactions, open registers or other unusual behavior.

For MSPs and channel partners, Katz says the opportunity is straightforward: many already have trusted relationships with local businesses that need these capabilities.

Through the NRS partner program, providers can add point-of-sale, payment processing and other retail services to their existing customer relationships without having to become retail technology experts themselves.

NRS is also targeting newer formats such as food trucks and small QSR operations with compact POS systems and kiosk integrations designed to manage in-person and delivery orders through a single platform.

Visit NRSplus.com to learn more, or SellNRS.com for information about becoming an NRS partner.

“I wanted a to-do list that would do itself.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Jon Cheney, founder of the General AI Proficiency Institute, discusses how GenAIPI is helping organizations move from experimenting with AI to actually putting it to work across the business.

Cheney says GenAIPI began as an AI training and advisory company after he saw how many successful businesses were still struggling to understand practical AI adoption.

That work eventually led to GENA, the company’s enterprise AI platform.

GENA stands for Generative Execution Neural Architecture. Cheney describes it as a central AI brain that connects with the applications a company already uses, including email, CRM, collaboration, finance and project-management platforms.

The platform supports roughly 1,500 integrations and can work across systems such as Google Workspace, Slack, HubSpot, QuickBooks, Microsoft tools and others.

Rather than simply answering questions, GENA is designed to take action.

It can create and assign tasks, draft and send communications, work with company data, participate in meetings, identify follow-up items and execute authorized workflows.

“The more you use GENA, the more valuable it becomes,” Cheney says.

A major focus is enterprise governance.

Companies can define exactly which employees can access particular systems, information and AI capabilities. An entry-level employee, for example, would not be able to access board meeting information simply because the AI has access to it.

That makes GENA particularly relevant for MSPs and technology partners helping customers bring AI into complex existing environments.

For Cheney, the opportunity is not limited to one vertical. Construction companies have been strong early adopters, but GenAIPI is also working with companies across professional services, healthcare, security and other industries.

The larger goal is to make AI useful without requiring every employee to become an AI expert.

Cheney also argues that AI should augment people rather than eliminate the human element.

“People are still going to win,” he says. “AI can do a lot, but it can’t feel.”

Visit GenAIPI.org to learn more.