CRN ChannelWeb - Bell Integration and AWS

Bell Integration’s CTO Stuart McMinn gives his insight on where AWS sits within Bell. Bell delivers transformation, migration and managed services to support both direct and white-labelled channel Customer data centre, cloud and modern workplace requirements as a core and significant part of our business. Customers of all sizes are now embracing the power and value that AWS provides to their business, with utilisation based billing, speed of deployment and the vast array of technologies and products now available being high on the agenda, along with a vast array of 3rd party products on the AWS marketplace, these are some of the key differentiators that we believe have seen AWS adopted as the preferred cloud provider for many. We are seeing many customers adopting “Cloud First” strategies for new business applications and services, and larger organisations setting targets as high as 60% for migration of on premise server based solutions to public cloud. Whilst this does leave room for data centre infrastructure which remains a core part of Bell’s technology business, it does show the increasing momentum for cloud. We are seeing many customers adopting “Cloud First” strategies for new business applications and services, and larger organisations setting targets as high as 60% for migration of on premise server based solutions to public cloud. Whilst this does leave room for data centre infrastructure which remains a core part of Bell’s technology business, it does show the increasing momentum for cloud. As a trend, we are seeing larger customers negotiating committed spend contracts with AWS to maximise available discounts, this of course creates pressure on IT to migrate and utilise the AWS platforms they are paying for in order to prevent effectively double paying for IT infrastructure. With Bell’s vClarus migration tools, we are able to safely accelerate the design, planning and execution of migrations from any environment to AWS with full control, governance and reporting. vClarus enables us to easily manage dependencies between applications and services, understand source and target environments, prioritise execution of targeted systems and track multiple levels of dependencies across major programmes whilst also being able to provide project and financial reporting. AWS sits as one Bell’s most strategic technology partners and many of our service including Cloud Access, our accelerated Cloud solution for SME’s and our IoT solution offerings incorporate AWS as a core component, and as such we ensure that all area’s of our business including consulting, managed services, presales and sales are trained and accredited extensively in AWS service offerings. There are two key challenges for organisations like Bell who provide migration and managed services to some of the largest financial and telco organisations who tend to transact directly with AWS rather than through a partner, as well as white-labelled services through other SI’s and managed service providers who might be reselling AWS consumption themselves is that AWS do not recognise these activities towards our partner accreditations. The other challenge being of course reduced margins being available after 2 years of any given solution, therefore creating a push to deliver alternative solutions. The key changes we would like to see is AWS understanding that organisations like Bell are helping their customers adopt cloud faster and therefore should be recognised for our contribution within the AWS ecosystem, and no reductions in margin based on duration.

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