AWS-Based Cloud Packages Offered by Avnet

The distributor Avnet Technology Solutions announced that it will release a series of off-premise cloud solutions from Amazon Web Services (AWS) at the latter's re:Invent conference this week in Las Vegas.

According to the vice president of Avnet Cloud Solutions for Avnet Technology Solutions, Americas, Tim FitzGerald, cloud backup for enterprises and cloud backup for Oracle Databases, Microsoft Sharepoint 2010 Enterprise server farm and Web hosting will be included as part of the pre-packaged services bundles.

FitzGerald said: “We're really excited about the relationship with AWS and the cloud elements we can bring to the table. To develop solutions on an end-customer-by-end-customer basis is an expensive proposition. Distribution exists to provide scale. If we are able to take cost out of the solutions design process to increase repeatability, we bring value to partners.”

Last May, Avnet Cloud Solutions was launched by Avnet. The company's aim was to develop seven categorized bundled solutions: productivity and collaboration, security, testing and development, RMM, application hosting and management, and data center-as-a-service. To enhance and broaden these provisions, the Amazon deal was struck-up.

FitzGerald said: “We've been hard at work creating the recipes of those integrated and packaged offerings. We're bringing together the industry-leading capabilities to form complete integrated solutions on top of the Amazon stack. We think it's a great combination. We've done the integration and packaging work to provide the framework that our partners can bring to end customers. We exist to accelerate the success of partners. We think that takes cost out of partners' businesses and gets them to market significantly faster.”

The merging of both Amazon Simple Storage Device (S3) and Riverbed's Whitewater cloud storage gateway appliance is inherent in Avnet's Cloud Backup for Enterprises. For a monthly fee, this is integrated into Symantec Backup Exec, according to the distributor.

Cloud Backup for Oracle Databases, an additional backup package, strengthens Amazon S3 with Recovery Manager (RMAN) and offers backup and recovery for customers utilizing Oracle Databases version 9iR2 and later. FitzGerald said: “Backup and disaster recovery is a hot area, specifically in a cloud situation.”

SharePoint cloud infrastructure, founded upon Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2), is included in the Microsoft package. According to Avnet, the application, presentation and database servers that can be merged with existing Active Directory infrastructure is also included.

Enterprise Web hosting is the fourth offering from Avnet, and this makes use of a hosted Web infrastructure on the Amazon EC2 platform for up to 100,000 concurrent users and millions of page views per month. Additionally, a load-balanced, multiple data center Web farm based on Linux will also be deployed to end-users. According to Avnet, this will support the DMZ, presentation, application and database tiers.

The president of a Freehold, New Jersey-based VAR, The Metropolitan Technology Services Group, Jennifer Connolly, said that this is the perfect cloud offering for her company to begin providing cloud services to customers.

Connolly said: “We like to be the single point of contact for customers, this points us in the right direction to offer whatever services they're looking for. Having the ability to get involved with Avnet with pre-build packaged offerings, especially around cloud and backup and disaster recovery, really helps us get out in front of everyone else.”

Training courses to aid in understanding the packages and making them easy to use will also be provided by Avnet. These courses will also help VARs and MSPs gain any certifications which may be needed to sell and support the solutions as well.

FitzGerald said: “At the end of the day, trusted advisors are the most knowledgeable on the technologies that make up those solutions. There's a tone of different training to partners for both Amazon specifically and CompTIA-based Cloud Essentials training. We absolutely believe training is needed to be a trusted advisor.”

It is probable that Avnet will include further cloud bundles based on Amazon Web Services in the future. FitzGerald said: “We think Amazon has relevance beyond these four offerings in alignment with those seven categories. Those seven categories are relevant today and we commit to remaining relevant to what our audience will look for in cloud solutions. We continue to evaluate whether we should add additional categories. We are spending time researching a couple key areas.” (CY) Link