HP and Avnet aim to democratise cloud market

Cloud-in-a-Box solution aimed at lowering the barrier of entry for resellers looking to help customers kick-start their private cloud journey

HP and Avnet have teamed up to "democratise" the private cloud market for resellers, with their Cloud-in-a-Box solution.

Unveiled at HP's Business Perspectives event in London today, Cloud-in-a-Box is designed to slash the time and complexity involved for firms starting out in the cloud. It is based on a server and software from HP.

Talking to ChannelWeb, Ian Brook, vice president of HP Software UK, said: "With private cloud, you have to think about security, orchestration and server availability and it can be very complex. We have taken that off the table."

Scott Murphy, HP business leader at Avnet, claimed HP had chosen his firm due to its pedigree with both HP Software and HP's ESSN [Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking] division, and its 1,000-strong base of resellers.

"The great thing about these integrated solutions is that anyone can sell them. As long as the reseller has the relationship, we provide the collateral, the messaging and the services," Murphy said.

"Cloud-in-a-Box is not going to make the customer's whole environment cloud, but it will enable them to start on a cloud journey in a low-risk fashion. From a testing point of view, the benefits are more about getting applications to market quicker, rather than cloud in and of itself."

According to Carla Arend, Information Management programme director at IDC – who was also present – moving to private cloud can be a one- to three-year engagement.

"That is why we are seeing that, although 70 per cent of people are now using collaboration in the cloud, only six per cent would characterise their internal IT as a private cloud," she added.

Paul Muller, vice president of HP Software Strategy worldwide, said mastering cloud can be a challenge for partners due to the server, storage, networking, applications and services skilled required.

"The reason Avnet Cloud-in-a-Box is such a huge opportunity is that it is democratising that, to enable partners to gain access to it quickly," he said.

The solution, which is set to go live to partners shortly, is aimed at customers of any size, said Brook.

"It could be that someone is putting in a simple accounting system, up to a multinational putting in a departmental system that is quite complex," Brook explained. "We run the same software on both."