2nd Watch – Arq Group Alliance

• Leading Cloud Factory provider Australian alliance: Arq Group & 2nd Watch announce cloud partnership
• Original Amazon Web Services (AWS) Premier Consulting Partner 2nd Watch to enhance local expertise and cloud migration capability
• 2nd Watch solution to harness unlimited capacity of the public cloud for enterprise workload migration and management
• Public cloud leader alliance ‘unlocks innovation’ for enterprise and government customers – value adds via Arq Group’s leading management approach for Australian market
• Data to remain in Australia bringing security plus AWS innovation benefits
• Australian customer references join extensive US customer references

In a new alliance that will extend local cloud migration capability to local organisations, Cloud Factory provider 2nd Watch has joined forces with Arq Group to offer services in Australia and New Zealand.

The partnership with cloud services leader, Arq Group (ASX:ARQ) and 2nd Watch will enable a new wave of cloud innovation as organisations accelerate migration of their enterprise applications into the cloud.

The partnership – initially offering Cloud Factory services – provides capabilities and experience proven in the United States to migrate workloads to the cloud rapidly, securely, and for a fixed price in Australia and New Zealand.

“2nd Watch is a leading provider of enterprise workload migration to the cloud and a member of the AWS Partner Network as AWS’ original Premier Consulting Partner,” said Peter Wright, Manager Director, Enterprise at Arq Group. “It has validated expertise and capabilities around cloud migration which, combined with Arq Group’s managed cloud solutions expertise, will bring significant opportunity for Australian businesses in the cloud space.”

In Australia for the Arq Group/2nd Watch alliance launch announcement, Jeff Aden, 2nd Watch Co-founder and EVP of Strategic Business Development and Marketing said, “Our partnership with a leader like Arq Group is a significant value add. This is especially so in a market known for its thirst for innovation and extracting value from technology.”

The initial and key offer of the partnership will be Cloud Factory.

“Cloud adoption in the US is more advanced than Australia,” said Peter Wright, “2nd Watch has proven success in the US with leading brands such as Yamaha, Condé Nast and Lenovo.”

Mr Wright said that Arq Group, also an AWS Premier Consulting Partner, had combined forces with 2nd Watch to bring proven, advanced data centre migration and consulting services to the local market.

“The result is that Australian/New Zealand organisations can now utilise the same data centre experience and outcomes that US companies benefit from – faster, risk managed, fixed price data centre migrations. To say that we are excited to bring these benefits to Australian and New Zealand enterprises is an understatement.”

Mr. Wright also said that, “the AWS connection with partners such as Arq Group has been hugely beneficial.”

He noted that: “since the AWS launch in Australia in November 2012, there has been strong adoption of the AWS cloud in Australia with a ‘first wave’ of cloud activity, which involved building and launching web and digital apps, test and development workloads and analytics in the cloud.”

“The rapid pace of local cloud adoption has proven that the cloud unlocks agility and innovation. While this trend will continue, a new wave of traditional enterprise workload migration to the cloud is emerging which will continue to deliver significant efficiencies and savings to organisations that have built trust to move their line of business applications in to the cloud,” said Mr. Wright.

“We are pleased to see these two great partners working together to bring Cloud Factory to Australia and New Zealand, offering value to organisations who want to further accelerate their journey to the AWS Cloud.” said Ed Lenta, AWS Managing Director, Australia and New Zealand.

Jeff Aden also noted the variation in cloud uptake in the Americas and Australasia.

“Thus, the partnership between two AWS Premier Consulting Partners made perfect sense,” said Mr Aden. “We can provide the expertise of our large scale cloud migrations to Australian customers who are just starting out with wide-spread adoption of cloud migration services. This realisation follows conversations which took place over the last year between 2nd Watch and Arq Group around the rate of cloud adoption in Australia and New Zealand.”

Mr Wright cited the example of Booking Boss – a recent customer of the 2nd Watch/Arq Group Cloud Factory solution. Booking Boss is an online booking software supplier to the travel and experience industry. Due to rapid expansion, Booking Boss had a requirement to migrate its entire business to a managed cloud environment however it faced the common problem of lacking availability of internal resources to drive the migration themselves. Booking Boss selected Arq Group and 2nd Watch to assist with its migration to a managed cloud service due to the combined expertise that this new partnership brings to the solution. Migration has commenced and the customer realises the benefits of leveraging the Cloud Factory services to enable fast, secure, and fully managed migration – for a fixed price.

“We chose to engage with Arq Group and 2nd Watch for peace of mind. It is important that our business applications are migrated through a proven and trusted solution, with minimal disruption to our organisation. Cloud Factory is allowing us a fast, safe, and easy migration to a managed cloud environment; and we get a level of comfort knowing it’s all fully managed. We’re excited to say that we are the first Australian organisation to gain access to this new alliance,” said Renee Welsh, CEO of Booking Boss.

“2nd Watch has experienced tremendous customer interest in Cloud Factory, both in the US and in Asia Pacific, and we’re thrilled to finally be able to launch our services here in Australia, with Arq Group. 2nd Watch and Arq Group share similar goals of providing migration and managed services for enterprise clients and also share a similar culture, which makes for an extremely robust partnership,” noted Mr Aden.

Australia is one of the fastest growing regions in the world for Amazon Web Services adoption, with Australians seen as early adopters of new technology.

“This partnership is a prime example of how new business models and relationships built on cloud methodologies can deliver new innovative services to the market for the benefit of customers. It demonstrates how two AWS premier partners are strategically collaborating to deliver a broader service portfolio to the market, faster than before. This is a smart move, and we’re extremely pleased that we’re able to build and launch the partnership in Australia before any other,” said Peter Wright.

About Cloud Factory

Cloud Factory by Arq Group and 2nd Watch is a solution for migrating data centres to the public cloud and reducing the complexity within IT organisations. Cloud Factory provides a comprehensive set of services and tools to assess, design, and migrate either entire data centres or individual workloads to the cloud. For more information on Cloud Factory, visit www.cloudfactory.com

About 2nd Watch

2nd Watch is a public cloud management company that helps enterprises accelerate adoption of the public cloud. The company’s unique suite of services and software extend and automate critical workload management processes for the public cloud, including governance, procurement, migration and administration. By combining proven methodologies, industry experts, and patent-pending automation tools, 2nd Watch is currently delivering public cloud workload automation across more than 100 enterprise customers and tens of thousands of Amazon EC2 instances. The venture-backed company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. To learn more about 2nd Watch, visit www.2ndwatch.com