SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Blue Box and Alliance Technology Group (Alliance) announced today a joint development program (JDP) that will deliver an on-prem version of Blue Box Cloud in the second quarter of 2015.
The solution is designed to address a growing interest among customers in an OpenStack-powered private cloud solution that runs in their data center or colo (on-prem) but is deployed, configured and managed by a single vendor with significant infrastructure operations experience.
Blue Box is an early innovator and leader in the managed OpenStack cloud market. The company’s Blue Box Cloud is the leading private cloud as a service (PCaaS) solution, offering the best of both public and private cloud in a fully hosted and managed delivery model. The technology and operations expertise behind Blue Box Cloud will be leveraged for the JDP effort. Alliance is a leading systems integrator and value-added service provider specializing in cloud infrastructure and professional services.
Drivers for an On-Prem OpenStack Solution
While Blue Box has achieved substantial success with its fully hosted and managed Blue Box Cloud, some customers still require that private cloud infrastructure be physically located in data center space that they control. This is known as an on-prem solution.
The drivers for an on-prem solution include control, performance, security and cost predictability. However, the primary reason why on-prem solutions are attractive to many customers who want agile cloud infrastructure powered by OpenStack is data gravity, a term popularized by David McCrory. It refers to the high costs (in bandwidth and time) required to move large data sets from on-prem to off-prem infrastructure. Because of data gravity, many customers find that it is less expensive and more reliable to move the infrastructure to the data.
These reasons – combined with the substantial engineering expertise required to architect, deploy and operate OpenStack-powered private cloud – led Blue Box and Alliance to combine resources to create a solution targeting customers who want an on-prem, fully managed OpenStack-powered private cloud.
“Our sales and channel teams have had great success with our hosted managed private cloud as a service product. Customer and partner feedback has been great,” says Hernan Alvarez, chief product officer at Blue Box. “Blue Box Cloud delivers what public clouds can’t: data sovereignty and security, governance and compliance, dedicated performance and cost predictability — all without the headaches of managing the underlying cloud infrastructure. Data has gravity and what our new on-prem, managed service will bring is ultimate proximity to the data.”
“Many of our customers want to consume OpenStack as a cloud infrastructure resource,” said Chris Williams, vice president of technology for the OpenStack practice at Alliance Technology Group. “However, they don’t want to bear the burden of deploying and managing the technology, but they demand that the deployment be housed in their facilities, under their control; customers are looking for an on-prem OpenStack ‘easy button.’ This joint development program with Blue Box is aimed at delivering precisely that: OpenStack-powered infrastructure, ready to roll to your data center at a moment’s notice.”
Product Availability
One deliverable from the JDP between Blue Box and Alliance is an early adopter program (EAP). “The EAP is designed for customers who want to move ahead with on-prem private cloud before their competitors do,” said Ken Cavallon, vice president of partners at Blue Box. “During the second quarter, together with our partner Alliance Technology Group we will announce the launch of the EAP and begin signing up customers to evaluate the product. What we learn from that EAP will help us put the product into general availability by midyear.”
Participation in the Early Adopter Program
Enterprises and service providers interested in participating in the EAP program can sign up to receive updates and further information by completing the form on this page: https://www.bluebox.net/on-prem-blue-box-cloud-eap
What Blue Box and Alliance Bring to the JDP
The JDP includes development of the core technologies and operating processes needed to reliably and cost effectively execute an on-prem managed private cloud offering. These will include a highly opinionated hardware and software stack configuration designed by Blue Box and optimized by Alliance. Blue Box’s proprietary cloud infrastructure management suite will be used to remotely configure and manage the on-prem solutions.
Blue Box will supply software and operations expertise for the development program, while Alliance will provide supply chain and on-prem expertise, including procurement, racking, stacking, cablings and on-going remote hands.
About Blue Box
Blue Box delivers private cloud as a service (PCaaS) to customers worldwide. The company’s technology platform leverages decades of operational expertise in cloud and distributed systems to deliver Blue Box Cloud—a managed, hosted private cloud on dedicated hardware, powered by OpenStack and available and scalable on demand. Blue Box Cloud delivers core benefits of both public and private clouds in one offering. Blue Box meets the control, performance and security needs of customers in a wide range of industries, including healthcare, financial services, digital media, gaming, technology and retail. Learn more about Seattle-based Blue Box at bluebox.net or find Blue Box on Twitter at @bluebox.
About Alliance Technology Group
Alliance Technology Group LLC is a leading systems integrator and value-added reseller serving both government and commercial accounts. As a data center operator, Alliance brings extensive experience with on-prem deployments for a wide range of technologies from storage to cloud to co-location. Alliance’s Converged Infrastructure solutions transform IT technology silos into interoperable shared pools of resources—servers, storage and network connectivity. www.alliance-it.com
