With cloud-based systems and modern Linux system administration tools, developers can launch a new server (or many) with a click and call themselves DevOps.
Some systems management tools such as Red Hat Satellite Server, Nagios and Puppet simplify server configuration. For most organisations, the days of hand configuration for each server for a specific role are past.
Achieving the highest level of AWS partnership recognises Claranet’s depth of experience on AWS and ability to help customers transform
European managed services provider Claranet has been awarded Amazon Web Services (AWS) Premier Consulting Partner status, in recognition of the strength of its AWS practice. Claranet becomes the first provider from Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Managed Hybrid Cloud Hosting, Europe 2016, and one of only ten services providers in Europe, to have achieved the distinction to date. The AWS Partner Network (APN) is a tiered programme designed to help partners build a successful AWS stream for their business.
The criteria for achieving Premier Partner status encompass technical expertise, and successful AWS business practices and proven deployments. Premier Consulting Partners must have a strong roster of certified and trained technical consultants, an APN DevOps Competency and at least one other APN Competency. Premier Partners must also have a healthy, revenue-generating business on AWS, underpinned by significant investment in their AWS practice and a track-record of success in deploying customer solutions on AWS.
Claranet offers a holistic hybrid IT approach and is making strategic investments to build a European-wide centre of excellence for delivering managed services on third-party cloud platforms. To this end, the company acquired AWS-specialist IT services providers in Spain (Celingest) and France (Morea) in 2015 and in the UK (Bashton) in early 2016. Its AWS clients today include BBC Worldwide, Dassault, ITV, Liverpool Football Club, Orange, Superdry, and Virgin Holidays.
Olivier Beaudet, CMO of Claranet, said:
Achieving Premier Partner status is an important development for Claranet, and one that reflects the investments we have made thus far in AWS over the past few years. We see AWS as a true enabler of business agility and it forms a critical part of our product roadmap and corporate strategy. Being a Premier Partner means that we will be able to work much more closely with AWS to help our customers take advantage of the platform and transform their businesses.
There is a huge appetite for AWS in the market, but many businesses – particularly those in the mid-market – have historically been locked out of taking advantage of the enormous benefits because they lack the necessary skills. Partner programmes enable organisations to take advantage of the highly innovative infrastructure offered by AWS, but with additional services and support.”
The Premier Consulting Partner status enables Claranet access to a variety of special partner privileges. These include attendance at rigorous AWS Professional Service Boot Camp Training sessions, Customer Facing Joint Webinars with AWS, and the employee status of AWS Partner Account Manager and AWS Solution Architect.
“All value of the field of IT is associated with applications” – Bernard Golden.
So you need to make the most of them. And there’s a lot of hype around the public cloud as a home for your applications. And its justified: whichever angle you take – cost, ease of access, maintenance, scalability, elasticity, versatility – the cloud is better than on-premises. The effect of which is that you can accelerate your application lifecycle, build better apps, faster, and beat your competition.
On paper at least.
On October 1st, 1962, Vassili Arkhipov – a Russian submarine commander – saved the world.
Two of his fellow commanding officers, having been out of contact with Moscow for a number of days, thought that war had broken out above the waves and gave the green light to launch a nuclear torpedo in response to American depth charges. A move which would have guaranteed nuclear war.
In a move of spectacular bravery, Vassili, whose agreement was needed to authorize the launch, refused to consent and persuaded the other two to surface and await orders.
Ever known someone who just sucks at communicating? Who can’t be honest about how they feel?
“I love you.”
“Er, cool.”
Really?!
That person is fooling no one. Except perhaps their partner. Unnecessary pain ensues.
Take-away: communicating openly with other human beings reduces suffering. But it’s very hard to do – which is precisely why it’s so valuable.
How much of a threat are your competition?
Perhaps you work in an industry that has enormous barriers to entry and is full of old-school techies who are quite happy to bob along with the status quo. If so you can stop reading here, kick back, light up an enormous Cuban cigar, and chuckle quietly to yourself.
The likelihood is, however, that your competition is pretty tech-savvy and reasonably on-the-ball when it comes to getting innovative new products and services to market sooner rather than later.
Challenge: Penlon needed a strong communications solution but their PBX infrastructure lacked mobility and functionality, especially across multiple sites.
Solution: Claranet suggested Hosted Voice, their cost-effective, flexible and feature-rich unified communications platform, which integrates directly into Claranet’s private MPLS network that Penlon were already using to connect their sites.
Result: With Claranet hosting its communications services, Penlon has seen significant time and cost savings, improved connectivity and has been able to roll out more collaborative ways of working.
Established in the UK over 70 years ago, Penlon is a world-renowned medical device manufacturer that designs and builds high quality products and systems for anaesthesia, intubation, oxygen therapy and suction control for the healthcare industry.
Although the company is based in Abingdon in Oxfordshire, Penlon maintains an office in the US and, through its network of distributors and partners, has a presence in 90 countries worldwide. The company therefore depends heavily on its communications systems to ensure that their disparately located and increasingly mobile workforce can collaborate and work together effectively.
Penlon had previously used a long-standing PBX infrastructure to support its in-office phone systems. However, the business faced a number of communications challenges as it looked to increase collaboration between its disparate locations.
Tony Serratore, IT Manager for Penlon, explained:
“One of our biggest technological challenges is ensuring that all of our locations can communicate with one another efficiently. We operate from a number of locations nationwide and internationally, so it is imperative that our staff in these locations can still communicate and work together efficiently, despite the distances.
Our PBX system was reliable enough for phone calls, but severely lacked in mobility or functionality options; it could make or receive calls, but that was essentially it. With employees often working offsite on specific projects, this presented a problem when trying to keep in contact. Additionally, it created a significant business risk in the case of disaster. The hardware was very outdated and if it went down at any point, we would have no alternatives for communicating effectively with our employees and customers – something that would cost us dearly in lost productivity hours.
This was something we could not ignore. We needed a strong communications solution to support an increasingly mobile workforce.”
Penlon was already using Claranet’s MPLS network infrastructure, and turned to them again for a solution. After a consultation period Claranet recommended its cloud-based communications platform, Hosted Voice. Powered by BT and Broadsoft, the service provides a complete telephone system without the need to install dedicated hardware. Hosted Voice is a cost-effective, flexible and feature-rich unified communications platform, which provides instant messaging and video conferencing capabilities alongside traditional voice calls.
The application plugs directly into Claranet’s private network and can be accessed from a range of internet-enabled devices. As the service avoids the public internet, it is not subject to fluctuations in bandwidth, meaning that service quality and reliability are maintained.
“Hosted Voice was attractive to us because of the way it integrated with our network,” Tony explained. “Given the MPLS platform’s reliability, we knew that our plugged-in communications platform would work just as well. Additionally, Hosted Voice can be accessed from any device connected to the internet, including laptops and mobile tablets, with all of its functionality available on each device. Mobility is a top priority for us so these features were key drivers for us adopting the platform.”
With Claranet hosting its communications services, Penlon has seen significant time and cost savings, improved connectivity and has been able to roll out more collaborative ways of working.
“We examined the market, but no other system could match the price-per-user or expansive functionality of Claranet’s Hosted Voice service. Claranet has also removed the need for us to deal with multiple third parties to get up and running, which has been a real bonus.
“In many ways, the MPLS network has completely transformed our business. Our staff are more able than ever to work remotely with more effective communication channels available from any location. Employees have full visibility on the status of their co-workers (available, busy, offline etc.), and can quickly chat to them through individual dialling codes or instant messages. Additionally, all of Claranet’s services provide consumer-level user experiences on enterprise-grade technology, cutting steep learning curves.
“Our relationship with Claranet is very strong, they act more as consultative partners than service providers,” Tony said. “The Claranet team are always examining the way in which their MPLS network supports our business, ready to share their expertise on how we can best use the platform to our advantage.”
Penlon is looking to expand the services currently managed by Claranet, integrating the MPLS network into their managed Amazon Web Services offering. “We’re delighted with the service we’ve received from Claranet so far and are keen to grow this relationship well into the future.”
Challenge: Penlon needed a strong communications solution but their PBX infrastructure lacked mobility and functionality, especially across multiple sites.
Solution: Claranet suggested Hosted Voice, their cost-effective, flexible and feature-rich unified communications platform, which integrates directly into Claranet’s private MPLS network that Penlon were already using to connect their sites.
Result: With Claranet hosting its communications services, Penlon has seen significant time and cost savings, improved connectivity and has been able to roll out more collaborative ways of working.
Established in the UK over 70 years ago, Penlon is a world-renowned medical device manufacturer that designs and builds high quality products and systems for anaesthesia, intubation, oxygen therapy and suction control for the healthcare industry.
Although the company is based in Abingdon in Oxfordshire, Penlon maintains an office in the US and, through its network of distributors and partners, has a presence in 90 countries worldwide. The company therefore depends heavily on its communications systems to ensure that their disparately located and increasingly mobile workforce can collaborate and work together effectively.
Penlon had previously used a long-standing PBX infrastructure to support its in-office phone systems. However, the business faced a number of communications challenges as it looked to increase collaboration between its disparate locations.
Tony Serratore, IT Manager for Penlon, explained:
“One of our biggest technological challenges is ensuring that all of our locations can communicate with one another efficiently. We operate from a number of locations nationwide and internationally, so it is imperative that our staff in these locations can still communicate and work together efficiently, despite the distances.
Our PBX system was reliable enough for phone calls, but severely lacked in mobility or functionality options; it could make or receive calls, but that was essentially it. With employees often working offsite on specific projects, this presented a problem when trying to keep in contact. Additionally, it created a significant business risk in the case of disaster. The hardware was very outdated and if it went down at any point, we would have no alternatives for communicating effectively with our employees and customers – something that would cost us dearly in lost productivity hours.
This was something we could not ignore. We needed a strong communications solution to support an increasingly mobile workforce.”
Penlon was already using Claranet’s MPLS network infrastructure, and turned to them again for a solution. After a consultation period Claranet recommended its cloud-based communications platform, Hosted Voice. Powered by BT and Broadsoft, the service provides a complete telephone system without the need to install dedicated hardware. Hosted Voice is a cost-effective, flexible and feature-rich unified communications platform, which provides instant messaging and video conferencing capabilities alongside traditional voice calls.
The application plugs directly into Claranet’s private network and can be accessed from a range of internet-enabled devices. As the service avoids the public internet, it is not subject to fluctuations in bandwidth, meaning that service quality and reliability are maintained.
“Hosted Voice was attractive to us because of the way it integrated with our network,” Tony explained. “Given the MPLS platform’s reliability, we knew that our plugged-in communications platform would work just as well. Additionally, Hosted Voice can be accessed from any device connected to the internet, including laptops and mobile tablets, with all of its functionality available on each device. Mobility is a top priority for us so these features were key drivers for us adopting the platform.”
With Claranet hosting its communications services, Penlon has seen significant time and cost savings, improved connectivity and has been able to roll out more collaborative ways of working.
“We examined the market, but no other system could match the price-per-user or expansive functionality of Claranet’s Hosted Voice service. Claranet has also removed the need for us to deal with multiple third parties to get up and running, which has been a real bonus.
“In many ways, the MPLS network has completely transformed our business. Our staff are more able than ever to work remotely with more effective communication channels available from any location. Employees have full visibility on the status of their co-workers (available, busy, offline etc.), and can quickly chat to them through individual dialling codes or instant messages. Additionally, all of Claranet’s services provide consumer-level user experiences on enterprise-grade technology, cutting steep learning curves.
“Our relationship with Claranet is very strong, they act more as consultative partners than service providers,” Tony said. “The Claranet team are always examining the way in which their MPLS network supports our business, ready to share their expertise on how we can best use the platform to our advantage.”
Penlon is looking to expand the services currently managed by Claranet, integrating the MPLS network into their managed Amazon Web Services offering. “We’re delighted with the service we’ve received from Claranet so far and are keen to grow this relationship well into the future.”
Leading pan-European managed services provider (MSP) Claranet has acquired Diademys, in a move that has significantly expanded the company’s size and reach in France. The acquisition positions Claranet as one of the most ambitious and dynamic players in the French hosting market.
Diademys was founded in 2006 and quickly became a visible and respected player in the managed services and cloud market, and is particularly known for its expertise in the hosting and management of critical business applications for mid-market organisations. Based in Suresnes and Caen in France, the company has an annual turnover of €26 million, employs 120 staff and works with 200 clients from a wide range of sectors.
With an ambitious growth strategy, the Claranet Group has grown steadily in Europe, both organically and by acquisition. Diademys represents the latest in a wave of acquisitions made by the company across Europe over the past 18 months. The Group’s annual revenues now stand at £192 million, employing more than 1,100 staff and working with 5,500 customers in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands.
Commenting on the acquisition, Diademys’ CEO, Fabrice Tetu, said:
We are backing Claranet for a number of reasons. The company has an aggressive and innovative strategy and wide presence across Europe, but, critically, it has retained its independence and is able to be agile in the face of changing market conditions. Claranet’s ethos matches that of our own and becoming part of the Claranet Group will bring significant opportunities for both our employees and customers. We have a great story to write together.”
Olivier Beaudet, CEO of Claranet France, added:
The acquisition of Diademys is a real opportunity for Claranet to strengthen its leading position in the French hosting market. We now have nearly 400 employees in France, a turnover of €76 million, and one of the broadest hosting portfolios in the country, and we are now in a great position to further accelerate our growth. This is great news for all of our customers, who will benefit from our expanded service offering, and is a great opportunity for our employees who will be able to benefit from new career opportunities.”
You want your business to run tediously smoothly. To be boringly uneventful. ‘Business as Usual’ (BAU) is your goal.
There are three fundamental elements that make up your business and that should all be available and working together in depressingly cadent synchronicity: people, offices and systems.
The ability to keep running as a business after any event that disables or inhibits any of these fundamental elements – that stops BAU – is Business Continuity (BC).
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