If you have the technical aspects of your business under control, but are still struggling with those operational challenges such as a five-year business plan or a thorough marketing timeline, there is help out there. Two IT industry organizations, ASCII and CompTIA, are offering regional events focused on those business-planning tasks.

Listen as Cameron van Orman, Senior Director of Channel and Partner Marketing at BlueArc and editor Gennifer Biggs talk about the advances in tiered storage technology that have made it more palatable to the midtier market and the ways MSPs and VARs can use tiered storage solutions to work their way into that market.

After an introduction through Xiotech, VARs Craig Stein and Barry Martin, partners in the Mirazon Group, shared their tips about selling virtualization solutions. The Mirazon Group specializes in network infrastructure, and often finds virtualization is the best solution for its customers. But since that technology can be tricky to explain to decision makers, they have worked hard to find the perfect pitch.

EMC consultant Steve Kenniston shares his knowledge about today's data deduplication technology, and how it can provide a unique value proposition for VARs selling everything from storage to backup and archiving.

Below, Michael Proper, CEO of ClearCenter, takes the time at CompTIA Breakaway 2009 to highlight the ClearCenter product. ClearCenter was honored at the event by winning the 2009 Breakaway Best New Product Award.

Peter Lougas, channel account manager for OKI Printing Solutions, sits down with Business Solutions magazine President Jim Roddy for an exclusive interview at the 2009 SYNNEX Spring Training Sales Conference in Toronto.

This month's Business Solutions' Lunch & Learn Webinar Series will tackle the issue of SaaS: "How VARs and MSPs Can Make Money Using SaaS." Join us on Thursday, Aug. 20, 1 to 2 p.m. ET, for this free webinar that will address the burgeoning popularity of Software as a Service (SaaS), including what is...

Cloud computing, including Software as a Service (SaaS), is here to stay and continues to become a larger piece of the IT budgets of small businesses, as well as global organizations.