Virgin Media Business to resell Savvis cloud service
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UK telco has partnered with hosting provider Savvis to offer customers a virtual private data centre service
VMB will resell Savvis' VPDC offering, which allows users to access scalable yet dedicated hosted IT infrastructure, to a broader market of small and medium-sized businesses and local government authorities.
"We operate our own data centres, so we could have built our own cloud infrastructure," Matt McCloskey, VMB's head of applications and services, told Information Age today. "But we decided that we don't need to provide the entire value chain, and instead chose to partner with Savvis."
Customers will receive three separate service level agreements with VMB, covering the infrastructure, the platform and the network connection. VMB will provide the first line of support, with Savvis providing second-line support from its UK-based support centres.
There has been some technical integration between the two companies, in that VMB has installed some new fibre connectivity into Savvis' data centre. This allows VMD to offer "assurity" on the availability of the service and security of customer data, McCloskey claimed.
When asked why customers would chose to purchase the VPDC service through VMB, rather than directly from Savvis, Ovum analyst David Molony said the principal difference was a matter of sales culture. "Savvis' customers are typically multi-national corporations," he said. "If you are a small business, Savvis probably isn't going to talk to you directly."
Earlier this year, Savvis was acquired by US telco CenturyLink. McCloskey says that VMB has been assured that the company has no plans to launch in the UK.
The fact that Savvis is a US-owned has no consequences for data protection, said Savvis' EMEA managing director Neil Cresswell. "We have government and business customers here who are governed by the EU, and the fact the we are owned by a US corporation is no impediment to them."
The news that Virgin Media Business has launched what it calls its first ‘true cloud product’ is interesting and comments from MD Mark Heraghty are particularly revealing.
Heraghty highlights that confusion is still a huge issue when it comes to businesses adopting the cloud and he is right to do so. In many cases businesses don’t fully understand the term, despite widespread media attention and industry analysis over the past few years.
From our perspective at Bull, the key to any successful cloud implementation is to keep the best interests of the end users at the heart of everything. Rather than making a huge jump, migration needs to be an evolutionary journey that will ultimately provide a greater range of choice for users.
Bull’s journey management methodology involves guiding customers on a ‘step-by-step’ journey to the cloud at a speed that suits them. We believe that this kind of approach is essential if businesses are going to realise the potential added value of IT, rather than simply regarding it as a cost.
Speed and flexibility will always be the two defining factors in any successful cloud implementation – especially for the confused customer who may have a number of fears about migrating to the cloud. Each business will be different, needing to move at a different pace in order to ensure that the company can learn to trust in the model.
Moving straight to the public cloud is likely to be a case of ‘too much, too soon’ for many and the security of the cloud is a natural concern for those businesses who view the cloud with trepidation. With that in mind, an initial adoption of the private cloud makes sense – as businesses are reassured that their data is secure and they know exactly where it is located at all times.
Andrew Carr, sales and marketing director, Bull UK and Ireland
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