Distributor Westcoast is edging further into the cloud with a new HP-based offering.
A £1m investment will see HP CouldAgile partner Westcoast offer the vendor’s Converged Cloud platform to resellers, allowing them to sell services on a pay-per use basis.
“IT is undergoing a revolution: we are moving from the era of on-site IT to IT in the cloud, and we want to support both,” explains Duncan Forsyth, Westcoast managing director.
Westcoast says it will offer a range of cloud services to drive revenue for SMBs, starting with SaaS. Resellers will be able to buy and manage Microsoft Lync, Exchange and SharePoint, hosted in Westcoast’s IL3 datacentre, through a dedicated cloud portal.
“HP Converged Cloud will enable us to deliver IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) and SaaS (Software as a Service) for customers who want their IT on-demand, with fast deployment and minimal need for capital investment,” says Forsyth.
To enable resellers to get off the ground quickly, Westcoast says they can take advantage of current credit lines with the distributor, as well as what it described as “a lucrative partner programme with in-depth training and support.”
“Owning, managing and utilising a datacentre frightens many resellers,” says Michael Clifford, director, cloud computing, HP UK & Ireland.
“HP Converged Cloud will enable Westcoast to demystify cloud for its resellers and make high quality cloud services easily available to anyone wishing to offer them. ”
HP’s Converged Cloud is built on a platform of HP ProLiant BladeSystem c7000 enclosures containing HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8 server blades, with Intel Xeon processors, as well as high capacity HP ProLiant DL360/380 Gen 8 rack-mounted management servers and HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric 10Gb Ethernet Modules to simplify server management and boost capacity.
Also as part of the Converged Cloud infrastructure, a storage area network (SAN) based on HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 Storage systems will deliver resiliency, accessibility and performance, while an HP StorEver Tape Library will automatically create backup tapes for secure off-site archival and intelligent HP 5400 Switch Series will deliver continuous network availability.
Westcoast Ltd has turnover in excess of £1bn and employs 800 people in the UK and Ireland.
