TD Synnex were appointed as Cisco's Irish distributor, with the new deal positioned around the recently relaunched Cisco 360 Partner Program.

Under the agreement, Cisco authorised partners in Ireland will have total access to services such as TD Synnex's Cisco Momentum program. Launched over a decade ago, the IT distributor's program aligns with Cisco focus areas such as security and lifecycle, alongside tailored offerings for small and medium enterprises and managed service providers.

Partners were also promised a migration service to the Cisco 360 programme, which launched this week. That relaunch centers heavily on the vendor’s ongoing AI push, while phasing out Cisco's two-decade-strong Value Incentive Program.

With the new service, Cisco aims to streamline its partner evaluation down to six focused portfolios: networking, security, cloud and AI infrastructure, Splunk, collaboration, and services. This is in contrast to the original wider remit of 22 specializations across 15 business units.

Joachim Mason, MD, partner sales, Cisco UK & Ireland, said the deal expands on the current "excellent working relationship" between Cisco and TD Synnex, adding that by extending operations to Ireland, the firms are "giving Cisco authorised partners the opportunity to take advantage of the services TD Synnex can provide to drive their sales growth with our solutions.

"We’ll be working closely with the TD Synnex team to ensure that our Cisco authorised partners have all the support they need to develop their Cisco business practices.”

The Cisco play comes as the Irish data center market struggles with land and grid capacity limitations. These ongoing concerns prompted Dublin to impose a de facto moratorium on new data center construction in 2022.

As a result, the country has become a less appealing destination for data center developers - something which has prompted fears Ireland will miss out on the current AI data center boom. With Cisco's 360 platform pivoting toward AI data center networking, it's likely partners will benefit from TD Synnex's more everyday focus with its Momentum program.