Cisco has a huge partner base that reached a couple of milestones this week, thanks to a new partnership with NetApp, as well as a handful of updates from the Cisco Live gathering.

Just a day after we’ve learned of the OEM agreement with Fusion-io the networking behemoth is teaming up with NetApp to promote its FlexPod converged infrastructure offering.  The company is debuting The FlexPod Premium Partner Framework, an added set of incentives for partners with a particularly noticeable impact on sales.

The program is based in part on some of the feedback and demands that Cisco’s resellers communicated recently. The so-called ‘elite’ third party vendors that are eligible for the framework are offered better locator tools, as well as additional merchandising resources and more support in the form of a FlexPod help desk.  The line for training sessions and demos has also been shortened, and NetApp fits in this picture rather nicely: premium VARs receive access to sales-related learning maps and infrastructure layouts from the company, in addition to new locator tools.

“Cisco and NetApp have heard from many of our joint channel partners that they want us to reduce complexity and streamline multi-vendor interactions, all while continuing to drive profitability,” said Brian Allison, director at Cisco’s data center unit. “Through the FlexPod Premium Partner initiative we’re rewarding partners for investing in elite sales, technical and services capabilities necessary to capture the rapidly growing market for converged infrastructure solutions.”

There are currently 22 FlexPod Premium Partners worldwide, and more than 1,000 deployments have been installed to date.

Another big highlight this week is the Cisco Live gathering, and JouleX is one of the vendors attending. The energy management systems maker revealed yesterday that its EnergyWise platform is now compatible with the Catalyst 3K and 4K  switches