How & Why MinIO Wants to Bring AI Storage to Channel Partners

Object storage vendor MinIO recently announced an enhanced partner program and strategic approach to building on its success through services and solutions providers. Channel Insider spoke with Vice President of Global Partner Sales, Mike Marinchak, about the new program and why MinIO is poised for explosive growth.

Updated program led by recently hired channel sales vet

Marinchak joined MinIO in May following a multi-decade career with stints in the channel programs at NetApp and Pure Storage. Now, he’s taking that experience to the next phase of MinIO’s place in the enterprise market.

“What really attracted me here is how our founders saw the explosion of data, and related challenges within data, and have built out object storage as the solution to that,” Marinchak said.

“When you talk to developers and engineers, they treat MinIO like a household name, and they love it,” Marinchak continued. “But outside of that, many people haven’t really heard of the company yet, and it’s really exciting to be somewhere with such a following and such room to grow.”

The MinIO Partner Program centers around four key pillars:

• Market Demand: Partners can tap into MinIO’s established global user community and leverage AIStor’s performance, which scales linearly with capacity in a single namespace, as customers strive for storage environment modernization and cost and control optimization.
• Bundling: MinIO estimates that its partners can realize a 4- 5x selling opportunity by bundling standardized storage hardware with MinIO AIStor and services to maximize average selling prices. 
• Sustained Profitability & Predictable Subscription Model: Partners can build recurring revenues with “generous margins” for the entirety of the customer engagement, across renewals, up-sell, and cross-sell. 
• Enablement & Certification: Partners can now access dedicated deal support, enablement training, and a paid certification program through the MinIO Academy to equip partners with the skills, knowledge, and confidence necessary for success.

Marinchak views the program as an opportunity for MinIO to support its partners as they scale their offerings around storage, driving increases in both revenue and customer satisfaction.

“Trace3 and MinIO have a strong partnership and successful track record in helping joint customers meet and exceed their goals,” said Jeremy Morris, the general manager of Northwest at partner Trace3. “We value the new opportunities the partner program delivers, especially the increased revenue opportunities, co-marketing, and advanced training—it makes us better, together. The benefits of this revamped program will help fuel our business growth as we evolve our offerings and go-to-market strategy.”

“We really need the scale that building a global partner network can provide,” Marinchak said. “We don’t have enough feet on the street to provide the coverage worldwide that strategic partners can bring us through the channel.”

AI continues to fuel demand for related services: how channel partners can win in storage

The demand for AI adoption is well-documented at this point, as is the concurrent increase in attention to related concepts such as storage, data governance, and security. 

“I’m excited to see how MinIO is going to participate in this market as it continues to grow,” Marinchak said. “Object storage is very in demand right now, and I think many see containerization as the future. It’s a time for hypergrowth in this area.”

According to Statista, the total amount of data created, captured, copied, and consumed globally reached 149 zettabytes in 2024 and is forecast to increase rapidly, reaching 394 zettabytes by 2028.

MinIO has long offered open-source solutions at low cost to members of the developer and engineering communities. The company then marked its entrance to the enterprise market with AIstor. The AIstor offering is available through a more traditional licensing model, and better addresses the scale larger organizations require from data and storage solutions..

“We’re focused on bringing our partners sustained profitability, both through MinIO and through the other things they can attach,” Marinchak said. “On average, for every one dollar in MinIO, our partners see an additional five dollars in attached wraparound services they provide to customers. Predictability in revenue is crucial now for success, and we want to enable our partners to see that sustained over long-term agreements.”

Partner programs continue to be a crucial way for companies to work within the IT channel. Read more about the additions Pax8 announced during its flagship Beyond event.