Former Ruckus boss Pat Devlin has taken on a new role with SimpliVity as local demand for hyperconvergence soars.

Devlin has been appointed to the new role of SimpliVity regional sales director for Australia and New Zealand.

Devlin's appointment - the first in-region management for SimpliVity – comes as the company reports strong growth with 2016 first half bookings up 2.5x year on year.

He is charged with expanding the company's presence across the region and helping established partners continue to grow their hyperconvergence businesses and offerings with their customers.

Scott Morris, SimpliVity vice president for APJ, says the appointment demonstrates the significant investment the vendor is making to expand its growth across ANZ. Morris previously oversaw the ANZ business. Devlin, who will be based in Sydney, will report directly to Morris.

“Simplivity's network of partners has been integral to the company's strong growth since launching in 2014,” Morris says. “Patrick's long history of working with the channel in ANZ, and with SimpliVity's key alliance partners including Cisco and Dell, represents a significant strengthening of our capabilities in the ANZ market.

Devlin says customers and partners are facing the same challenges around the cost and complexity of their IT infrastructure.

“Cloud offers a new commercial model but brings with it new challenges,” he says.

“Industry analysts predict hyperconvergence to be the next logical phase of IT development and the economics of this prediction are solving real issues right now.

“Organisations of all sizes are battling with the cost of IT infrastructure and data management, and I look forward to working with our partners to solve this technology challenge for their customers and working with my new team dedicated to providing our customers with a rapid return on their IT investments.

Devlin was previously Ruckus Wireless' managing director for ANZ and Pacific Islands, a role he held for two years. Prior to that he was the ANZ country manager for WatchGuard. Other roles include a stint as Australia regional sales manager for Brocade.