Interview with public cloud division head at Claranet Bashton reveals Europe-wide links and wider recruitment reach The growth of Amazon Web Services (AWS) at enterprise level is clear, with its channels some 50% larger than they were a year ago. Claranet Bashton, the public managed services division of the hosting company in the UK has been building up its services, and has a lot of experience of working with Amazon Web Services (AWS). IT Europa spoke with Sam Bashton (below), founder of the original business and head of the Claranet division, at the AWS Summit this week in London.
“We are a separate business unit from the hosting and networks business of Claranet. There is a strong recognition that public cloud is fundamentally something different, not just another way of doing infrastructure. You need the right people and right skills. When we were acquired, I'm pleased to say that there was no thought of just stamping Claranet on us and merging us into the whole. We are specialists in public cloud.”
Cloud is such a fundamental shift in the market. Claranet also bought Morea in France in 2015, another AWS-based cloud business and the links between Bashton and Morea are close. “In many ways we have more in common with them than the rest of Claranet. It is uncanny how similar they are to us – pleasantly surprising.”
“We have taken a lot of learning from the French business and we share a lot. One of the great things about AWS is that it allows us to develop 'Infrastructure-as code' so we write code that builds infrastructure and being able to share templates is very useful . That has given us a huge and allowed us to deploy in a number of new verticals.”
There is a clear trajectory that Claranet is on with public cloud, he says, having bought another AWS-based business Celingest in Spain at the end of 2014.
The advice and messaging have not changed in the last year – there are certainly more of them, he says. The story stays the same- to take advantage of cloud, you need to do it properly – take advantage of what AWS gives you. If you try to take an existing application built with on-premise in mind onto AWS – a lift and shift,- you will not see a massive benefit. You need to design it for AWS from the start or buy an existing app.”
Even if you are a customer on the Claranet hosted service – or anyone else's, just taking it and moving it to AWS doesn't make sense. “It is fair to say that a lot of our role is breaking down the silos within organisation. Especially in a more traditional environment, there will be a team of developers and a team of sys admins and code gets thrown over the fence from development to operations. AWS facilitates co-operation, but if there is no willingness in the people in the business, it is not going to succeed. It is a mindset change as much as a technical change ”
In the last year, AWS from a technical point of view, there has been few changes in approach, but it has become a much more focused company – very good at understanding what customers need and building the right things, he says.
His view on the pressure to change to public cloud is interesting: “Different verticals have different degrees of threat – in a vertical with a low barrier to entry, then there is pressure to change quickly, before competitors. In another business area, such as construction, there is less pressure and reason to adopt cloud. In something like financial services, where AWS is doing all the compliance an regulatory work, then the opportunities come thick and fast.”
What's holding him back? “Recruitment is a challenge – we're very picky on who we employ, but the Claranet ownership has helped- it is useful to have a presence in multiple towns and cities in the UK. Us being able to hire across the UK has made a big difference and we have not needed to compromise on standards.”