Srinivas (AVM - left) and Devan (VMware) v2

AVM Cloud Sees More Moves Towards Multi-Hybrid Cloud

Technology

AVM Cloud Sdn Bhd (AVM) Chief Strategy Officer Srinivas Rao (left in pic), believes that the Multi-Hybrid Cloud has become one of the major areas that every organisation is moving towards.

“Enterprises are looking for balance; there are 19% of enterprises that only use public clouds and 2% that only use private clouds, while 78% are using the balanced approach, i.e. hybrid clouds, mixing both public and private cloud infrastructure,” he noted.


He said this during a recent podcast, ‘Multi-Hybrid Cloud’ in the ‘Fit Into The Cloud’ series, jointly organised by VMware and AVM Cloud.

“Moving into the cloud space requires having a cloud strategy in place. First, decide between ‘cloud-first’ or ‘multi-cloud’ strategy – that’s something the organisation needs to figure out.

“Secondly, it’s about continuous placement assessment – which service can be consumed from which cloud; where do I place the service.

“Finally, plan for the future – do you want to go completely on public cloud, or stay on-premise, which are the solutions that you can prepare in a way that can be on-premise, go to public cloud later, or move from public cloud back.

Srinivas reminded organisations not to forget about the management and governance aspect, because multiple cloud brings in that complexity of managing multiple clouds, costing etc.

“This is where AVM Cloud excels for enterprises, where cloud consumption is all about having a governance model, and should be connectable to multiple clouds. Our acquisition by the TIME dotCom (TIME) gives us the ability to do multiple connectivity.”

The TIME group has been expanding its cloud division, most notably earlier this year when TIME acquired a 60% equity interest in AVM. The latter is also the first VMware Authorised Consultant and Premium Partner in Malaysia, and among the very first VMware Verified Cloud Partners in the country.

Meanwhile, VMware Malaysia Country Manager Devan Parinpanayagam (right in pic) agreed with Srinivas about the need for organisations to have a strategic cloud strategy.

“From a VMware perspective, we are here to encourage and support our partners to embrace their cloud journey. From a personal perspective, the best thing for the customer could be all the clouds, but then the issue is how do you get the best ROI for where you put your services?”

If you use a multi-cloud approach, said Devan, you could divide up your workload between the various different options.

“This is where a service provider model helps you, because you never get locked in.”

Devan’s advice to customers is that they first need to figure out what the cloud strategy is, which should revolve around multiple hybrid clouds.

“You have to start continually think about which app goes where, but that has to remain a flexible option, so that you can move it around.”

“With a cloud provider or service provider model, you can literally provide anything as a service, or ‘XaaS’ (Everything-as-a-service). As we expand our portfolio into multi-cloud, security, application modernisation, and containerisation, VDI and Unified Endpoint Management, these are all services that a VCPP partner like AVM Cloud can provide to customers. It’s not a different solution – it’s a different way to consume the solution, and that’s exactly what the customers want.”

VCPP, or the VMware Cloud Provider Programme, enables partners to consume VMware products on a pay-as-you-go, pay-as-you-grow, monthly subscription model. VMware Service Provider Partners can now offer hybrid cloud services that quickly and seamlessly extend the customer’s datacentre into the cloud by using the same VMware products and tools they already use on premise.

The TIME group has been expanding its cloud division, most notably earlier this year when TIME acquired a 60% equity interest in local cloud service provider AVM Cloud Sdn Bhd (AVM).

AVM is a VMware Premier Partner in Malaysia, and also among the very first VMware Verified Cloud Partners in the country.

AVM aspires to be ‘trusted cloud provider of choice’

According to Srinivas, as a Premier-level VCPP partner, AVM Cloud benefits from decreased time to market, reduced capital investments, and lower development costs to stay competitive in the cloud computing market.

“Beyond managing cloud spend, I think what organisations are looking for from a governance perspective is a multi-cloud management platform or a trusted cloud provider that can tell them where to put their services, what the cloud economics are.

AVM Cloud is aiming to be that trusted cloud provider partner – and with VMware’s ability to work with AWS, Azure, and other hyperscalers in the current market – the company is strongly positioned with innovative technologies that provide security, speed, flexibility, and scalability organisations require to adapt and thrive under any circumstances.

“This strength then allows our customers to pull those solutions and consume them wherever they can.”

Devan agreed, noting that VMware is ‘the Switzerland of clouds, as we work with everybody’.

“If we are out there positioning hybrid clouds and multi-clouds, our partners must be able to do the same. AVM Cloud is a great VMware partner, but even more so for your own customers as a Cloud Management Partner/Platform (CMP), as they need you to be able to help them with cloud automation, management, governance, and economics.”

The full podcast can be viewed here.

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