Scality revamps partner programme with new Authorised tier

Scality has introduced a revised partner programme for resellers and distributors, adding a new Authorised tier to its global channel structure.

The update includes revised discounts, higher margins across all tiers, expanded deal protection and additional training pathways tied to its storage software portfolio. The programme is intended to shift partner rewards away from transaction volume and towards certifications, demand creation and longer-term account development.

Scality is positioning the revised model around three areas where it sees partner demand growing: cyber resilience, digital sovereignty and AI infrastructure. Those themes have become a major battleground across enterprise storage and data infrastructure as customers seek ransomware protection, greater control over where data sits and systems that can support AI workloads.

A central change is the creation of an Authorised tier designed to lower the threshold for new partners entering the programme. From there, partners can move to Select and Elite levels as they add skills and deepen commercial engagement.

Scality has widened the discount gap between the entry and top tiers to give partners a stronger financial incentive to invest in sales and technical certifications rather than approach the vendor on a deal-by-deal basis.

The company has also increased margins at every programme tier, simplified opportunity registration and extended protection periods for registered deals, aimed at partners working through longer enterprise sales cycles.

Training Focus

The revised programme is supported by Scality University, which provides on-demand sales and technical training. Certification tracks cover ARTESCA, RING and ADI, spanning sales, architecture and deployment roles.

The technical training includes the Scality Certified Architect programme for RING and ARTESCA, delivered in English, French, German and Spanish through in-person and on-demand formats. Sales staff can take a separate certification focused on positioning ARTESCA for cyber resilience, secondary storage and regulatory compliance use cases, while deployment teams have a dedicated ARTESCA Delivery Training course.

Scality has also added a certification pathway for ADI, its autonomous data infrastructure offering for AI. It has also introduced an ARTESCA Test Drive tool that allows partners to create a live demonstration environment without setup work.

Marketing support is another part of the revised structure, with access to campaign kits, co-funded campaigns and qualified leads for top-tier participants.

Channel Strategy

The programme update signals a broader emphasis on indirect sales. Scality is increasing its focus on the channel as its route to market, with the programme intended to support consultative selling in markets where transactions can involve a mix of compliance, security and infrastructure design requirements.

That approach also reflects the supplier's software-only position in the market. Because Scality does not sell hardware, partners can choose server and storage configurations from third-party vendors to fit customer needs. In practice, that gives channel firms more flexibility when hardware availability is tight and can leave a larger share of the overall deal value in partner hands.

The company ties that argument to three strategic sales themes. In cyber resilience, it is highlighting immutable storage and ransomware protection based on its CORE5 architecture. In sovereignty, it is focusing on software-defined deployments that can be adapted for regulated and regionally restricted environments. In AI, it is using ADI as its route into enterprise spending on data infrastructure for AI systems.

Eric LeBlanc, ARTESCA General Manager & Channel Chief at Scality, outlined the rationale for the changes.

"The Scality partner programme is designed to reward what truly generates long-term success: technical excellence, solution expertise, and proactive market engagement - not just signed contracts. Partners who build pipelines, educate their customers, and develop the Scality footprint are those who capture the most value in this programme. And in the sovereign and AI markets, across EMEA, the Americas, and APAC, it is precisely this type of partner that makes the difference," said LeBlanc.

Scality also cited support from Etage, one of its partners, which said the structure better reflects the realities of infrastructure sales that depend on architecture design and customer retention rather than box-moving.

"Most partner programmes reward who moves the most boxes. Scality's new programme rewards partners who build the right architecture and stay with the customer through it, which is how Etage works. Their software-defined model gives us the flexibility to design for each customer's reality. The new programme gives us the economic certainty to invest in those engagements, and Scality solutions with CORE5 cyber resilience give us a story that lands hard in the cyber and sovereignty conversations defining our market right now," said Kingsford.

The revised Scality Partner Programme is now available globally, and existing partners are being moved into the new tier structure with support from the company's channel managers.