Colt’s cloud services for the channel now available via ArrowSphere

Arrow Electronics and Colt Technology Services have jointly announced the availability of Colt’s cloud services via ArrowSphere, Arrow’s cloud services platform for its channel community. The Colt portfolio has all of the key infrastructure and network elements required to underpin cloud projects, including cloud storage and vCloud backup and recovery. These are all now available via ArrowSphere.

Colt and Arrow have worked together to create a complete self-service user experience, empowering Value Added Resellers (VARs) to manage their customers’ requirements and provision new services instantly. Designed for VARs to take to market, the cloud services have the relevant billing and management tools to help them meet their customers’ solution objectives. Arrow’s channel community have the option to either create and operate a managed cloud backup service, or to pass self-management rights directly to their customers. The consumption-based price model means that customers only pay for what they use, optimizing their IT spend with no upfront costs.

Colt’s vCloud service portfolio offers customers a flexible pool of resources comprised of compute, storage and networking elements delivered from Colt’s own data centres in Europe, backed up by its industry-leading network. This ensures consistent quality of service which Arrow will now be able to offer to their channel community. Included in this portfolio is Colt’s backup service for VMware vCloud® which provides flexible service options for end-user customers who can choose exactly what data they want to protect and backup, the level of resiliency, and in which European locations. Colt’s backup service also allows VARs to offer their customers cloud-to-cloud resilience. Also available through ArrowSphere, Colt’s replication service permits VARs to decide the location of their customers’ workloads in the event of a disaster. This will enable Arrow’s channel community to better meet the needs of customers with on-site Vmware deployments who require cost-effective disaster recovery capabilities.

Also available on ArrowSphere is Colt’s object-based cloud storage service for VARs. Based on EMC Atmos technology, the new easy-to-deploy cloud-based object storage solution extends capacity for a wide range of on-premise applications from a variety of different technology vendors, including Symantec, EMC and CTERA. The new service provides VARs with the ability to offer their customers scalable storage, with no upfront investments. Colt Cloud Storage offers the flexibility of adjusting storage needs as business requirements change, removing the need for upfront capital outlay on storage hardware. With a choice of plans, each with their own SLA, Arrow’s channel community can be confident about storing their customers’ data locally and can specify the level of security required.

Eric Taillard, Vice President Cloud Services, Arrow ECS EMEA, commented “We are pleased to have Colt’s service fully-integrated into ArrowSphere. We worked very closely with Colt in defining a true channel solution that answers to the needs of the market and puts our channel community in the position to deliver value add by offering assistance in migration, configuration and management of on-premise as well as cloud solutions.”
Gary Moore, Distribution Director, Colt, commented “The launch of these new services represents a further move into the fast-growing cloud infrastructure market for Colt, and builds on our position and expertise as one of the most extensive cloud services providers in Europe. Our wholly-owned long distance pan-European network and data centre estate offers unrivalled levels of security, reliability and reach across Europe. We support Arrow’s cloud services strategy, and are delighted to have our cloud storage service now available on this important commercial platform.”