Cloud services are increasingly being adopted, replacing the traditional on-premises IT infrastructure model. However, there are still proponents of the traditional IT infrastructure, especially those IT partners who earned revenue from the hardware used in on-premises IT setups and were content with it. Why?
Currently, one of the reasons for this is the lack of “Cloud” experts. This not only applies to engineers and architects but also to project budgeting experts in the Cloud and constant project cost control. Without such experts, using the Cloud can end up being very expensive. But these experts are also expensive to hire – having their own team of experts is cost-prohibitive for small companies.
Therefore, the main approach after introducing Cloud to small and medium-sized enterprises is to engage external services, which also have their problems:
Intense competition, leading to small budgets and challenges in securing service contracts after implementation – “we buy something in the Cloud from the most famous company in the world and hire the cheapest external service for configuration and maintenance to save money.”
Choosing between narrow specialization and the need for experts across major cloud platforms. Major clouds are highly developed and have many features that are not required in integration projects, but a specialist must know all of them to obtain a certification they can present to the client.
Support. Small system integrators cannot afford 24/7 support, and relying on the service provider’s support is not the best solution because support in large corporations is not always user-friendly or is expensive.
To help address all of the aforementioned issues, Estonian IT service provider Cloudsy has developed a partner program offering IaaS/PaaS services to small and medium-sized companies (IT integrators, IT outsourcing companies, companies offering their own SaaS services, website service providers) who provide IT solutions to their clients. Cloudsy offers: Elastic Cloud (private, public, hybrid cloud), Pay-As-You-Go billing model, vGPU options, object storage (S3), backup services, disaster recovery services, public network and maintenance, Microsoft licenses (SPLA and NCE), free pre-sales services, 24/7 support. Additionally, they offer a “White label” business model allowing partners to use their platform under their own brand. This model has been very successful as there is no visual difference that could cause additional questions and distrust from the partner’s client. Their free pre-sales service helps partners find the best IT infrastructure solution for their clients, saving time and effort for the partners.
The Pay-As-You-Go billing model they have is very transparent, with no hidden costs. They also have a cost calculator on their platform, enabling users to calculate the costs of the services they wish to use, ensuring constant control over their project budget. Moreover, what sets them apart in the market is the monthly commission to the partner for their client’s use of their service.
“For several years, we have been researching the opinions of our partners and clients,” says Daniel Hodak, Cloudsy Business Development Manager, “we listen to their feedback and comments to ensure the appropriate and most profitable use of our Cloudsy partner program with IaaS/PaaS services. With this approach, we have enabled our partners to be more competitive in the market.