Why purchase from an AWS Solution Provider?

As an AWS Advanced Partner and AWS Solution Provider Renova Cloud offers comprehensive services to help customers accelerate their journey to the cloud. For many of our customers, we not only provide robust Managed Cloud Services, we also resell Amazon products and services.  Why purchase from an AWS Solution Provider? What are the advantages? With an AWS Solution Provider, who owns the account? These are all great questions and the subject of today’s blog post.

1. Who owns your Account?

Ownership is commonly misconstrued part of the arrangement.  When Renova Cloud resells Amazon Web Services as an AWS reseller, our customer “owns” the account.  At Renova Cloud we work hard every day to earn our customers’ trust and confidence and thereby, their business.

Our pricing model for Managed Cloud Services is designed to leverage the advantages of cloud computing’s consumption model – pay for what you use. Renova Cloud customers who purchase AWS through us have the right to move their account to another MSP or purchase directly from AWS too.

Let’s put the word “own” in quotes because it is subject to different interpretation.  Some will see the ownership issue as a vendor lock-in issue, some as an intellectual property concern and still others a liability and security requirement.

With Renova Cloud’s Managed Cloud Services consumption model you are not locked-in to Renova Cloud as your AWS reseller or MSP. AWS Accounts and usage purchased through us belong to the customer. Not to Renova Cloud, and therefore any intellectual property contained therein is the responsibility and property of the customer.  Additionally, as the account owner, a customer’s AWS accounts use a shared responsibility model.  With regards to liability and security, however, our role as an MSP can be a major benefit.

2. How does Managed Cloud Services work?

Often MSP’s “govern or manage” the IAM credentials for an AWS account to ensure consistency, security and governance.  We use the words govern or manage and not “own” as it is important to understand that the customer still has the right to take back the credentials and overall responsibility for managing each account. Which is the opposite of lock-in.  So why would a customer want their MSP to manage their credentials?  The reason is pretty simple; similar to a managed data center or colocation facility, you own the infrastructure. But you hire experts to manage the day-to-day management for increased limits of liability, security and enhanced SLA’s.

Simply put, if you, as a customer, want your MSP to carry the responsibility for your AWS account and provide service level agreements (complete with financial repercussions). You are going to want to make sure administrative access to the environment is limited with regards to who can make changes that may impact stability or performance.  As a Renova Cloud Managed Cloud Services customer, allowing us to manage IAM credentials also comes with the benefit of our secure & compliant processes. Often our security controls exceed the capabilities of our customers.

In addition, as we on-board a Managed Cloud Services customer, we often will audit their environment and provide best practice recommendations.  These recommendations are aligned with the excellent AWS Well Architected framework and help customers achieve greater stability, performance, security and cost optimization.  Our customers have the option of completing the remediation or having Renova Cloud perform the remediation.  Implementing best practices for managing user access along with leveraging cutting edge technology results in a streamlined journey to the cloud.

3. Why purchase from an AWS Solution Provider?

So now we have addressed the question of who owns the account! So why customer would want to procure AWS through a partner? First, see our blog post regarding Cloud Cost Complexity.  Second, buying AWS through Renova Cloud as an AWS partner, or AWS reseller, comes with several immediate advantages including a 15 Hours Free Support Package as well as:

• All services are provided at AWS market rates or better
• Pass through all AWS volume tier discounts and pricing
• Pass through AWS Enterprise Agreement terms, if one exists
• Solution based and enhanced SLA’s (above and beyond what AWS provides) shaped around your business requirements
• Familiarity with your account. Our AWS certified team is available 24x7x365 and have access to a comprehensive history of your account and governance policies.
• Access to Enterprise class support including Renova Cloud’s multiple dedicated AWS Technical Account Managers with Managed Cloud Services agreements
• Consolidate usage across many AWS accounts (see AWS volume discount tiers above)
• Consolidated billing for both Managed Cloud Services and AWS Capacity
• Access to Cloud Analyzer Platform, a web-based console, greatly simplifies the management and analysis of AWS usage
  • Cost Analysis and Alerts: Gain comprehensive operational insights with cost and usage analysis into all your cloud deployments. Detect irregular cloud spend and identify the root cause for immediate remediation.
  • Cloud Efficiency KPI: Discover your cloud efficiency KPI and track the feedback loop of your optimization actions over time.
  • Actionable Optimization: Receive actionable cost and usage optimization recommendations that you can implement and automate with the click of a button
• Ability to provide Reserved Instance recommendations and management services
  • Helps improve utilization and prevent spoilage
• You can select the level of services for Managed Cloud Services on any or all accounts. You can consolidate your purchasing without requiring services you don’t need.
• Assistance with AWS Account provisioning and governance. We adhere to your corporate standards (and make pro-active recommendations).

In short, buying your AWS capacity through Renova Cloud as your MSP is an excellent value that will help you accelerate your cloud adoption.  We provide the best of AWS with our own services layered on top to enhance the overall offering.  Please contact us for more information about our Managed Cloud Services including Managed AWS Capacity, and Renova Cloud as an AWS Reseller Partner.