As enterprises race to adopt artificial intelligence, Percona sees a growing opportunity to help customers regain control over rising infrastructure costs, data governance challenges, and vendor lock-in concerns through an ecosystem of carefully selected channel partners.
Louis Hood, director of global partnerships and channels at Percona, said the current AI boom mirrors many of the same patterns organizations experienced during the early years of cloud adoption, when companies rushed to embrace new technologies before fully understanding the operational and financial implications.
AI growth brings new scrutiny to data management
According to Hood, many organizations are investing heavily in AI initiatives to remain competitive, often outpacing their governance and planning processes.
“AI is prevalent,” Hood told Channel Insider. “The cost, the data centers that are being built—there’s ancillary impact that occurs when you go down this route without a lot of governance, rigor, compliance, et cetera.”
While AI platforms continue to dominate technology conversations, Hood argues that data remains the constant underlying every transformation effort.
Database and infrastructure needs are changing
As organizations deploy more AI workloads, data volumes continue to expand, creating new requirements around governance, sovereignty, compliance, and performance optimization.
He said those realities are driving customers to revisit how they manage their databases and infrastructure, creating opportunities for Percona and its partners to provide more consultative guidance.
“There’s not a lot of consultation around that. They’re just doing it,” Hood said of many AI projects. “The data cannot do that. Because you have data sovereignty, because you have data compliance, things along those lines, you have to be respectful of that.”
Percona bets on targeted partnerships over ecosystem expansion
Hood said one of his first priorities after joining Percona was to evaluate the company’s existing partner base and identify opportunities for deeper strategic alignment.
Rather than pursuing partner growth for its own sake, Percona is focusing on partners that share customer profiles, complementary capabilities, and a common approach to solving data challenges.
“I’m not worried about the sheer quantity of partners that we onboard,” Hood said. “I want to make sure that we are respectful of the right partner alignment.”
The company organizes its ecosystem around four primary categories: global systems integrators, independent software vendors, VARs, and cloud providers.
Within each segment, Hood said Percona is looking for partners that can help bring its database expertise into customer engagements where data management, migration, and optimization have become strategic priorities.
“They may be able to do the managed services component for the global account or our customer. But we can also provide services around professional services, database infrastructure optimization, and consulting and professional services.”
Open source gains momentum amid cost concerns
Hood believes the rise of AI is also creating favorable conditions for open-source technologies. As enterprises confront rising software licensing costs and seek greater flexibility, the distinction between traditional commercial software ecosystems and open-source alternatives is narrowing.
Customers are increasingly evaluating options that can help control spending while reducing dependence on individual vendors, he said.
One area generating particular interest is database migration projects, which Hood described as complex, expensive initiatives that often require specialized expertise. Percona’s partners play a key role in helping customers navigate those transitions while addressing broader concerns around modernization and compliance.
Looking ahead, Hood expects data sovereignty requirements, particularly in Europe, to further elevate the role of open-source technologies and create new opportunities for both Percona and its channel partners.
“Now we’re in the conversation where just six months ago, we were not,” Hood said, referring to growing customer interest in open-source solutions as organizations reassess their long-term data strategies.
The partner opportunity moving forward
Looking ahead, Hood believes the partners best positioned for growth will be those that move beyond transactional sales motions and help customers navigate the increasingly complex intersection of AI, data governance, compliance, and infrastructure modernization.
As organizations grapple with rising AI costs and expanding data footprints, he argues that partners have an opportunity to differentiate through advisory expertise and services-led engagements rather than simply delivering technology.
For Percona, that means building an ecosystem centered on customer outcomes, with partners that can help enterprises make smarter long-term decisions about their data strategies.