Solution Provider Panel: Trump, Public Cloud Will Drive More Vertical-Focused Sales

"That space is completely transforming," McGrath said. "There's real opportunity there."

Datalink expects its growth in the coming year to be tied less to specific verticals and more to the adoption of flash storage technology, with all-flash now making up a majority of Datalink's storage sales. While early flash storage system sales came from industry newcomers like Nutanix and Pure, Lidsky said the current wave of flash sales growth is being driven by legacy storage players like EMC and NetApp.

"While NetApp was late to the party, they have put up big numbers in our universe," Lidsky said.

Although Datalink's recent flash sales growth has mostly been driven by legacy vendors, Lidsky said they are primarily winning deals with clients that are already part of their existing customer base. When it comes to winning new customers, however, Lidsky said Datalink is more often than not replacing legacy storage system vendors with flash offerings from new, purpose-built companies.