Cloud Computing News: AWS Loses Another Key Exec to Azure; Canalys, Vega Cloud, Hyve News
In this week’s short but meaty cloud computing news roundup, find out who else has left the world’s largest hyperscaler for Microsoft Azure. Plus, news from Canalys, Vega Cloud and Hyve Managed Hosting.
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After eight years as head of AWS’ storage and compute systems, Ahmed Shihab has left for top rival Microsoft Azure.
Shihab recently posted the job change on LinkedIn. He now holds the title of corporate vice president for storage at Azure.
Microsoft has not released any details around Shihab’s hiring, which is standard practice among the cloud providers.
It’s also not unusual to see top cloud leaders jump from one vendor to another. Late last year, Whit Crump left AWS, too, though for Google Cloud. At AWS, he oversaw worldwide channels and customer programs for AWS Marketplace. He now serves as managing director, partner programs and incentives at the world’s third-largest cloud computing provider. He did not transition to a marketplace position similar to what he held at AWS.
A significant chunk of channel partners expects as-a-service revenue to grow by more than 10% this year.
According to a new Candafero poll, 40% of respondents say that projection holds true for their businesses. Candafero is the online partner community arm of research firm Canalys, a Channel Futures sister company.
A little less than a third (31%) of partners forecast their as-a-service revenue to increase 1-10%, according to the results. Another 15% is looking at flat growth. From there, a handful (8%) see declines of 1-10%, while 6% of partners see drops of more than 10% coming their way.
The expectations for more as-as-service revenue come as little surprise. As more vendors shift to subscription licensing, and as more partners themselves adapt to that business model, it’s inevitable that as-a-service offerings will attract more revenue.
Vega Cloud this week unveiled its partner program.
The cloud cost optimization vendor aims to attract VARs, systems integrators and managed service providers. Recently signed partners include Clarify 360, ClearData and E78 Partners.
The need to track and control cloud costs has been at the forefront of many IT and financial executives’ minds since the aftermath of COVID-19-fueled deployments. Indeed, FinOps practices have taken off since the pandemic as more organizations have understood the messes they inadvertently created by allowing uncontrolled rollouts of cloud services, platforms and infrastructure. And, in many cases, channel partners have led the FinOps crusade. That’s why the Vega Cloud partner program formation seems to have come a bit late.
While Brandon Tanner, executive vice president of business development at Vega Cloud, didn’t quite answer Channel Futures’ question around the timing of the partner program launch, here’s what he did tell us: “The partner community has been trying to drive FinOps but it hasn’t been successful, primarily because the tools they were offering weren't purpose-built for FinOps or flexible enough to handle changes coming from the cloud service providers. For instance, Cloudability and Cloudhealth require significant work from the partner and/or customer to generate any meaningful or actionable data.”
Vega Cloud says its platform is easier to use and offers the ability to curate the data provided by all the primary cloud providers. It also incorporates any organization-specific metadata to provide contextualized recommendations, Tanner said.
“The other solutions use the native cloud billing data, which is often inaccurate and creates ‘garbage in, garbage out’ issues,” he added.
Partners may join the Vega Cloud program as referral partners or resellers. Compensation and incentives vary depending on partner type and amount of interaction — standard approaches. Vega Cloud provides training. The company also will work with end users’ internal FinOps practitioners and data analysts on the setup side as needed.
Vega Cloud does not charge for its services by percentage of spend, which is fairly typical in the cloud cost optimization sector. Rather, the company charges via a flat-rate software license subscription based on the annual spending tier.
Hyve Managed Hosting has made its cross-Atlantic move.
The fully managed cloud hosting provider, based in the UK, now runs its North America hub from Austin, Texas.
Hyve sells through the channel. It now operates in the UK, United States and Europe, offering infrastructure and management services that include private cloud, dedicated servers, colocation and security. The company added the United States to its roster in large part due to demand in North America for cloud computing. Hyve also sees itself as a challenger to the hyperscalers, providing personalized approaches. It does this by offering VMware cloud services.
Hyve has hired Stoney Reynolds to lead its North America expansion. Reynolds has worked for companies including Trend Micro, FutureCom and Nortel.
“The cloud has so much potential to accelerate business growth, but organizations lack the in-house knowledge and skillsets needed to get there,” Reynolds said. “We have a massive opportunity in the U.S. market to empower businesses to innovate.”
Hyve Managed Hosting has made its cross-Atlantic move.
The fully managed cloud hosting provider, based in the UK, now runs its North America hub from Austin, Texas.
Hyve sells through the channel. It now operates in the UK, United States and Europe, offering infrastructure and management services that include private cloud, dedicated servers, colocation and security. The company added the United States to its roster in large part due to demand in North America for cloud computing. Hyve also sees itself as a challenger to the hyperscalers, providing personalized approaches. It does this by offering VMware cloud services.
Hyve has hired Stoney Reynolds to lead its North America expansion. Reynolds has worked for companies including Trend Micro, FutureCom and Nortel.
“The cloud has so much potential to accelerate business growth, but organizations lack the in-house knowledge and skillsets needed to get there,” Reynolds said. “We have a massive opportunity in the U.S. market to empower businesses to innovate.”
Amazon Web Services has lost another key executive to a competing cloud computing provider.
In this week’s short but meaty cloud computing news roundup, find out who else has left the world’s largest hyperscaler for Microsoft Azure.
After that, research firm Canalys has some new stats on the revenue channel partners expect this year from as-a-service deployments. They’re important numbers, given the worldwide transition from perpetual to subscription licensing models.
From there, Vega Cloud, a cloud cost optimization provider, has news. It has launched its channel program and already counts Clarify 360, ClearData and E78 Partners among its participants.
Finally, Hyve Managed Hosting has made the move into the United States. The UK-based company specializes in cloud hosting and chose North America because of record cloud computing demand on the continent.
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