Q&A: What Does it Mean to be IGEL Ready Activated vs. IGEL Ready Advanced?

Many of our customers have asked about the difference between ACTIVATED and ADVANCED designations within the IGEL Ready Program. So, to help shed more light this, we sat down with Divya Saggar, Director of IGEL Ready for a Q&A on the differences between these two levels and advantages of each for our partners.

Q: What is IGEL Ready and IGEL Ready Showcase?

A: IGEL Ready is IGEL’s flagship technology alliance program for integrated hardware vendors (IHVs) and integrated software vendors (ISVs) that want to develop integrations with IGEL OS, a managed endpoint operating system that delivers a secure, manageable, and cost-effective end user computing experience across VDI, DaaS and SaaS environments.

The IGEL Ready Showcase is the website where customers and partners can go to learn more about the companies that have verified their technologies with IGEL OS. The showcase contains information about each company and solution, including data sheets, videos, whitepapers, and more.

Q: What is the difference between IGEL Ready ACTIVATED and IGEL Ready ADVANCED? What do the levels mean for a customer buying IGEL or the partner products?

A: For a partner offering listed as IGEL Ready ACTIVATED, the partner has performed the testing and verification using the test kits and other resources provided by the IGEL Ready team. Once the testing is complete, IGEL will support its software, meaning IGEL OS and the partner supports their specific solution offering or hardware.

If a customer experiences any support issues, they will be required to contact the partner in question separately. However, IGEL is available to help the customer by escalating any issues they may experience with an ACTIVATED solution in cases where they are unable to resolve a challenge on their own.

For a partner offering listed as IGEL Ready ADVANCED, all integration and testing are done by IGEL. For software, it means that the partner solutions are integrated directly into the IGEL firmware and can be deployed from IGEL OS. For hardware it means, that the device is shipped to IGEL for complete testing.

An ADVANCED solution or device is fully supported by IGEL, meaning if a support issue arises with an ADVANCED solution, everything can be handled by IGEL.

The customer can check the level of the partner offering on the IGEL Ready Showcase website.

Q: What do the ACTIVATED and ADVANCED levels mean for the partners?

A: Most of our IHV and ISV partners will begin their IGEL Ready journey at the ACTIVATED level as ADVANCED is “invite-only” or requires a business case to qualify.

For partners, there are four primary differences between the two levels they should be aware of – program benefits, support, integration, and testing. As mentioned previously, IGEL handles all support cases for ADVANCED level solutions. IGEL also takes care of all integration and testing for these solutions. In the case of an ACTIVATED level partner, they will be required to support their own solutions and perform their own testing and integration with IGEL OS. Further, with each new release of IGEL OS, IGEL tests the ADVANCED level solutions. ACTIVATED level partners are encouraged, but not required, to keep their solutions up to date with each major release.

ADVANCED level partners also get an elevated level of alliance engagement and business development benefits. An ADVANCED level IGEL Ready partner works closely with the IGEL Ready team on various opportunities to do a joint go to market, run co-marketing programs and promote our offerings to the customers. 

Q: Where can customers and partners find more information about the program?

A: IGEL Ready Showcase is the primary source of information for the IGEL Ready program. Key features of the site include:

• Program Guide where all details of the program and its benefits for customers and partners can be found.
• Badges signifying the level of testing and integration completed by the IGEL Ready partner and/or its products.
• Company profile featuring more information on the IGEL Ready partner including links to product pages that provide specifications and other details.

Q: Does IGEL Ready designate whether a partner has met IGEL ACTIVATED or IGEL ADVANCED requirements?

A: Each of our IGEL Ready IHV and ISV partners’ Showcase pages feature a badge indicating the level their solutions have achieved with IGEL Ready.

For more information on the IGEL Ready Showcase, visit https://en-staging.igel.com/ready/. More information on IGEL OS can be found at en-staging.igel.com.