Claranet News

Mixed approach to IT causing pain points, research finds

Claranet report finds half of businesses under-prepared for effective cloud service integration

Claranet’s latest annual cloud adoption trends report has found that businesses are struggling to properly incorporate cloud services into their broader IT estates, with around half experiencing integration and migration problems. With end-users increasingly using a blend of hosting and deployment models for their IT, the research suggests that they will need to work more closely with their cloud service providers to maintain a functional and fully-integrated whole.

Claranet’s third annual cloud adoption report, launched today, has found that while the number of UK businesses using cloud services has increased to 74 per cent, however, just one in five (18 per cent) cloud users were fully satisfied by their chosen method for migration. This dissatisfaction could be explained by a lack of preparation in some areas, namely understanding of regulatory constraints (only 47 per cent felt well-prepared), understanding the impact of legacy technology (53 per cent felt well-prepared), and understanding how to integrate new cloud services with existing on-premises solutions (just 46 per cent).

According to Michel Robert, Claranet’s UK Managing Director, having an effective strategy in place to manage the evolution to cloud is vital.

Robert said: We have seen that successful IT leaders are taking a flexible, iterative approach to technology that pays heed to business needs, and selecting the best tool for each job. This bottom-up evolutionary approach removes many of the risks of larger all-encompassing IT projects, which can sometimes be expensive, difficult to coordinate and less responsive to changing business requirements. But while the agility of cloud has lent itself well to a step-by-step approach to IT deployment, there are still challenges to address, to ensure successful migration and integration.

CSPs must therefore take a more active and consultative role in helping businesses integrate their services and plot their migration strategies. Increasingly cloud providers need to act more like business consultants, working alongside IT decision-makers to understand the needs of different parts of the organisation. No two migration and integration plans will be the same, so it is important to develop strategic partnerships to achieve the most effective results,” he continued.

Businesses predict that they will push even harder to move applications to the cloud over the next 18-months and this will test their cloud suppliers and their expertise in managing not only the day-to-day hosting challenges, but also in supporting how applications can be deployed, managed, and integrated into increasingly complex IT environments. IT decision-makers intent on a step-by-step strategy should therefore seek out providers that offer high standards in migration and integration, and have experience in managing and hosting a range of business applications effectively,” Robert concluded.

Download the full report here

Find out more:

Claranet Research Report 2014 reveals change in cloud adoption

Having recently released the latest edition of our yearly Claranet Research Report, our third, I wanted to look back at its history and address some of the changes in attitudes that have occurred in that time.

We set up the Claranet Research Programme in 2011, shortly after I joined the company, with the aim of exploring the ways that IT leaders were configuring their technology in light of the rise of cloud.

At the time, cloud, in various forms, was positioned in the ‘Peak of Inflated Expectations’ in Gartner’s hype cycle. It was clear cloud was on the cusp of mainstream adoption, so we felt it made sense to begin a programme that monitored this changing approach to the consumption of IT, and tried to make sense of individual businesses’ strategic decisions.

Many of the findings we uncovered in our first report demonstrated a degree of scepticism toward cloud. The 300 IT leaders we interviewed could see the theoretical benefits of cloud technology but adoption was tempered by fears around cloud’s less understood characteristics. Just 54 per cent of businesses were using some form of cloud in 2011. By the 2013 survey this figure had grown to 74 per cent.

read more

Claranet acquires Dutch Cloud Services Provider NovaData

  • Deal cements Claranet’s position as the largest provider of cloud services to the mid-market in Western Europe
  • NovaData is latest in a series of acquisitions by Claranet in the UK and mainland Europe in the last 18 months

Claranet, one of Europe’s leading independent managed services providers, has acquired Dutch cloud services provider NovaData, as part of its continued expansion across Western Europe, creating the largest cloud services provider to the mid-market in the region. The acquisition of NovaData, which has annual revenues of €7 million (£5.,7 million) ,), strengthens Claranet’s position as the leading provider of managed hosting and application management services in The Netherlands.

Founded in 2008 and located in Eindhoven, NovaData is an IT services firm focused on mid-sized and large businesses and institutions. With a range of services that broaden and complement Claranet’s existing portfolio, NovaData is a natural partner for Claranet. It means that cCustomers in the region will benefit from the expertise of both companies and from a combined and expanded services portfolio. NovaData’s customer base comes from a wide range of industry sectors such as healthcare, business services and manufacturing.

A success story in the European technology market, Claranet has continued to grow from strength to strength since it was founded in 1996. Recently, the business has seen an intense period of rapid growth, with NovaData the latest in a wave of acquisitions made by the company over the last 18 months – with Star in the UK (November 2012), Typhon in France (December 2012), Echiron in Portugal (February 2014) and Grita in France (March 2014).

Charles Nasser, CEO of the Claranet Group, commented:

The acquisition is part of Claranet’s overall growth strategy, allowing us to expand our teams and our service offerings rapidly. NovaData is the third acquisition we’ve made in 2014 – which confirms our ambition to become the leading independent provider of managed services in Europe. Already a ‘leader’ in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for European Managed Hosting, the acquisition of Novadata strengthens now positions Claranet as one of the leading providers our for managed hosting and managed applications portfolio in The Netherlands.”

Ruud Joosten, Managing Director of Claranet Benelux BV, said:

We have been in discussion with NovaData about this acquisition for some time. By joining together two highly successful service providers that have collaborated together on several customer projects already, we expect our customers to benefit from our enlarged portfolios immediately.”

“By joining forces with The combination of Claranet and NovaData, we will creates new opportunities for our customers, our partners and our employees,” said Bert Verhoeff, MD and founder of NovaData. “They will all benefit from Claranet’s pan-European operations, its strong financial footing, and an expanded services portfolio,” he added.

As a result of this latest acquisition, the Claranet Group will have annual revenues in excess of €160 million (£135 million), circa 800 employees, over 4,500 customers and operations in 6 European countries (France, UK, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain and Portugal).

Find out more:

Notice re OpenSSL cryptographic software (Heartbleed)

A serious problem has been identified in the OpenSSL cryptographic software library. This bug impacts the security of data on any system protected by the vulnerable versions of this software. Please note that only 1.0.1 and 1.0.2-beta releases of OpenSSL are affected, including 1.0.1f and 1.0.2-beta1.

What action is Claranet taking to safeguard its customers:
Claranet is currently patching all servers within its own infrastructure and those of its managed application customers.
For Claranet managed hosting customers, Claranet advises that they contact its Support Desk and request this patching as soon as possible.
For Claranet colocation customers, Claranet strongly advises that they patch their servers.

What other action should affected users take:
Users affected by the bug are advised to upgrade to OpenSSL 1.0.1g.
For those users who are not able to immediately upgrade, they can alternatively recompile OpenSSL with DOPENSSL_NO_HEARTBEATS.
RedHat users should upgrade to the patched version of 1.0.1e.

Please note:
There is a small possibility that this bug may already have been exploited. For this reason, Claranet also recommends that new, private keys be generated, along with revocation and reissue of SSL certs for any affected customers and users.

Further information about this issue can be found at: http://heartbleed.com/

From keeping the lights on to lighting the way – the changing role of the CIO

In recent years the CIO’s role has changed from simply delivering an organisation’s IT, to performing an essential role, supporting and facilitating business strategy, directly contributing to the generation of revenue and profit.

With this change the CIO has also seen a shift in reporting lines. A few years ago the head of the IT department would report to the CFO/FD as IT was seen as overhead rather than part of the strategic outlook for the organisation. Increasingly CIO’s are now reporting directly to the CEO/MD. This shift clearly underlines the way in which businesses are viewing IT as a vehicle for helping an organisation achieve its goals.

CIOs are now not only being tasked with “keeping the lights on”, but also supporting customer acquisition and retention, and helping the organisation reach its revenue goals, while at the same time completing major enterprise projects and product innovation efforts.

read more

Charities look to digital media to gain competitive advantage

Over the past 10 years there has been a shift in consumer behaviour towards online channels. At the start retail and media were two industries which were significantly impacted, with consumers preferring to shop online rather than high street stores. Suppliers which couldn’t adapt quickly enough became insolvent or were bought out. Some high profile examples are Blockbuster, Woolworths and Dixons.

Charities now face a similar challenge. Digital media and online presence is becoming more and more integral to raising brand awareness and collecting donations. Multi-channel interaction with customers is vital to establishing brand recognition in the 3rd sector where today there are over 150,000 charities in the UK competing for donations.

Some Charities have embraced the trend and recognised social and digital media as a huge opportunity to open new donation channels and increase brand awareness.

A recent success story has been Cancer Awareness who raised £8m from a Facebook campaign (girls take a picture with no-makeup and post on facebook to raise awareness for breast cancer).

One agency that is leading the way in digital media to launch campaigns and raise awareness is Amnesty International. To drive its digital strategy, Amnesty’s IT team embarked on an ambitious three-year project to overhaul its hosting platform. This project would involve the consolidation and re-engineering of Amnesty’s hosting infrastructure, and aimed to fully integrate all its online properties, and to provide enhanced data analytics and much greater functionality to users. Other objectives included simplifying the management of the platform and eliminating other inefficiencies, and improving the reliability and flexibility of the online infrastructure.

Claranet has helped us to simplify our back-end processes and to automate fulfillment, so that our staff can get on with more important things like building additional functionality to support our next campaign.”
Kamesh Patel, Head of IT at Amnesty

read more

Organisations may be over-paying for cloud with inappropriate payment models

Flexibility of Pay-As-You-Go does not always mean value for money; predictable usage requirements often better served by fixed-rate model, says Claranet

Over a third of large enterprises that are using cloud services have adopted multiple payment models for these services, particularly when supplied by more than one provider, according to research by Claranet. Michel Robert, Managing Director of Claranet UK, says that while this as a sign that organisations are adopting an incremental approach to cloud adoption, they are also inviting unnecessary complexity and may be leaving themselves open to paying over the odds.

Claranet’s third annual cloud adoption survey, which polled 300 IT decision-makers from a range of small and medium-sized businesses, and enterprises, found that 34 per cent of large organisations (those with more than 3,000 employees) that are using cloud-based services are taking these services from more than one provider and are tied to more than one payment model as a result. Payment models cited included flat-rate subscriptions and a variety of scalable and “Pay-As-You-Go” (PAYG) options.

The apparent flexibility offered by PAYG payment models may give the impression of value for money, but Robert counsels caution:

Flexibility has always been one of the key selling points of cloud computing and outsourced IT, and this extends to the models available when it comes to paying for services. Just as they need to ensure the service they take is suited to their needs, organisations must make sure the payment model they choose is appropriate to the way in which they will use their cloud services,” he said.

Our research revealed that 87 per cent of organisations surveyed cited flexibility of compute resources (ability to scale up or down) and access to applications as a key objective when migrating to the cloud. Yet 75 per cent said that their compute usage was predictable. A Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) model may provide value for money if you are frequently using the ‘burst’ facility of your cloud service. However, if a company’s particular workload is largely predictable it may end up paying more than it needs to. Yet in most circumstances, it should be possible to anticipate your requirements and put in place a payment model that reflects this level of productivity and delivers genuine value,” Robert continued.

Robert recommends an incremental approach to cloud adoption: “Many organisations and their IT chiefs face increased demand from the business to provide applications with high availability on a 24/7 basis. This high level of dependence on these applications, coupled with increased complexity, is a key driver to partner with proven outsourcing companies. In most cases, these organisations can leverage their scale and provide services to companies at a lower cost than the companies doing it in-house. This is especially true for mid-sized organisations. Against this backdrop, cloud computing can be an ideal option for those organisations looking to take a more agile and iterative approach to reduce the business risks associated with IT change,” he said.

“An incremental approach to cloud adoption does, however, increase the potential for complexity and over-payment, particularly when different services are procured from different providers,” Robert concluded.

Find out more:

Claranet acquires Grita, a specialist French hosting provider to the healthcare sector

  • Claranet becomes one of the few service providers in France with the combined HADS, PCI-DSS and ISO 27001 accreditations, and extends its reach into a new market segment
  • Deal confirms Claranet’s position as the leading independent provider of managed services to the mid-market in Western Europe
  • Ambitious strategy of rapid expansion continues – with Grita as the latest in a series of key acquisitions (Star, Typhon, CGEST and Echiron)

Claranet, one of Europe’s leading independent managed services providers, has acquired Grita, a specialist provider of hosting services to the healthcare sector in France, and accredited with the French Ministry of Health’s HADS (Hébergeur Agrée de Données de Santé) certification for the hosting of private medical data. The acquisition is part of Claranet’s continued European growth strategy, and creates the region’s largest cloud services provider to the mid-market.

Since entering the healthcare and emerging e-pharmacy markets in 2010, Grita has become a leading player – with over 50 major customers in the sector, including Philips and Agfa. It was also one of the first companies in France to achieve the HADS standard. Its specialist product portfolio, complements Claranet’s existing market offering and further extends the company’s expertise in hosting and outsourced web applications.

The HADS accreditation, combined with Claranet’s existing ISO 27001 and PCI-DSS certifications, makes the company one of the few hosting providers in France to have this set of key industry accreditations, and extends its reach into this fast-growing market segment.

Claranet continues to be a success story in the European technology market, having grown steadily both organically and through acquisition. Adopting an ambitious growth strategy, Grita is the latest in a wave of acquisitions made by the company across Europe over the last 18 months – Star (UK, 2012), Typhon (France, 2012), CGEST (Portugal, 2012), and more recently Echiron (Portugal, 2014).

Olivier Beaudet, MD at Claranet France, says:

Grita’s specialist expertise in the healthcare sector makes it the perfect partner for Claranet. The hosting market in France is particularly vibrant and is evolving rapidly. Already a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for European Managed Hosting, the acquisition further consolidates Claranet’s position in France, and ensures we are well-placed to take advantage of new opportunities within existing and emerging markets in this region.”

“Becoming part of the Claranet Group will create new opportunities for our customers, our partners, and our employees,” said Jean-Pierre Denis, Sales Director at Grita. “They will all benefit from Claranet’s extensive pan-European operations, its strong financial footing, and an expanded services portfolio.”

Claranet takes an application-first approach at Cloud Expo Europe 2014

MSP to present latest cloud adoption findings from the Claranet Research Programme

Claranet, one of Europe’s leading managed service providers, will today detail the latest cloud adoption trends from the Claranet Research Programme at Cloud Expo Europe 2014. The show is the company’s first UK event since it acquired Portuguese MSP Echiron in February 2014, confirming their position as the leading managed services provider in Western Europe.

The acquisition of Echiron, which is the latest in a string of recent acquisitions, cements Claranet’s position in Portugal as the leading provider of managed hosting and applications services in the region. It means that customers will benefit from an expanded services portfolio as well as greater capabilities in Portugal.

Visitors to the Claranet stand will receive an early preview of how Claranet is exploiting new technology to address the demand for increased agility, flexibility, and availability. Show attendees will have the opportunity to see how Claranet can take one version of a client/server application and deploy it to any device, anywhere, anytime.

Michel Robert, Claranet’s UK Managing Director, said:

From our research, it is clear that the majority of UK businesses have their sights firmly set on the appropriate adoption of cloud services. The large-scale IT projects of old are gradually being phased out to a more service-based approach to IT procurement. Rather than charging head-on towards one type of infrastructure, businesses are now able to pick-and-choose the types of IT that are most appropriate for their individual applications.”

“This application-centric approach gives businesses the flexibility to construct an IT estate that will support the needs of the organisation, evolving as-and-when required. It does, however, pose a challenge in terms of maintaining an integrated and functional approach given the likely hybrid mix of infrastructure required – some cloud based, some dedicated and potentially some on-site. With demand on IT set to continue to grow over the next 12-months, IT departments will need to work more closely with their service providers to migrate and integrate their services effectively.” Robert continued.

On the first day of the event (26th February), Mark Wilson, Claranet’s Senior Product Manager for Hosting, and Andrew Audsley, Product Manager for Business Applications, will be presenting on the topic of customer-focused innovation. The presentation will take place in the Cloud Management, Services and Applications theatre at 13:45, and they will be discussing the ways in which cloud is transforming the business IT estate.

Later that afternoon, Michel Robert, Claranet’s UK Managing Director, will present the latest cloud adoption trends from the Claranet Research Programme in the Keynote theatre at 16:15. Robert will discuss the ways in which cloud is facilitating business transformation and innovation, and will be joined by Richard Thomas, founder and CEO of NetEvidence, who will offer a first-hand account of their cloud migration, explaining why thinking application first matters.

Find out more:

A customer's perspective: Journeying to the cloud – migrating away from a legacy platform

This blog is used with permission from Sift, the digital agency, who are a customer of Claranet’s. The original blog can be found here.

A few years ago a venture capitalist told me the secret of success when growing a technology business was to sell the company within a single technology cycle. His reasoning was that you really didn’t want the hassle and risks of transitioning your platform from one paradigm to the next. This post is for those of us with longer term aspirations.

In our case, the project started in 2007 and culminated six years later with Sift’s CIO Chris Wood switching off our servers at Verizon just before Xmas last year (as evidenced by the empty racks and redundant servers below), consolidating everything with Claranet and Amazon.

read more