Coming Together for AWS Customers: Cloudnexa, AppDynamics, Sumo Logic and Trend Micro

We work with a diverse APN Partner ecosystem who often come together to enrich their own services and solutions on AWS and develop dynamic offerings for end customers. Today, we’d like to tell you about four APN Partners, Cloudnexa (a Premier APN Consulting Partner) and Trend Micro, AppDynamics, and Sumo Logic (Advanced APN Technology Partners) who came together to provide customers with an offering that combines 1) The AWS platform, 2) Managed security, application intelligence, and machine data analytics solutions, and 3) Managed services, and is delivered as-a-service through a utility-based pricing model.

Starting with the Needs of Customers

The notion of working with a number of APN Technology Partners to develop a premium managed service offering for customers on the AWS Cloud came from evaluating the needs of Cloudnexa’s customers.  “The idea came from working with our existing customers. Many were looking for this type of solution,” said Joel Davne, Founder and CEO of Cloudnexa. The Cloudnexa team seized the opportunity to develop a fully managed offering for customers by combining the comprehensive solutions of other APN Partners with their existing vNOC Managed Services offering.

As they began to identify areas in which they could provide additional value to their customers through other APN Partners’ solutions, Cloudnexa worked with the APN team, who introduced them to Sumo Logic. Similarly, Sumo Logic had been working with the APN team to identify APN Managed Services Partners to maximize the deployment of their Log Management and Analytics Service.

In addition, both AppDynamics and Trend Micro were approached, based on both reputation in their respective spaces, and on feedback from Sumo Logic’s customer base. Mark Musselman, WW VP of Strategic Alliances and Business Development at Sumo Logic explained, “We’ve had a lot of customers ask for an integration story with the type of application management that AppDynamics provides, and a number of customers provided positive feedback on Trend Micro and their solution.” The Trend Micro team immediately saw the value of working with Cloudnexa to provide comprehensive threat protection to customers through the managed offering. “Cloudnexa clearly recognizes the opportunity and has brought three complimentary technologies which AWS customers could benefit from. We are truly excited about this combination of platform, solutions, and managed service being brought together for customers,” said Partha Panda, Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at Trend Micro.

Business Model Innovation on AWS

The offering combines Cloudnexa’s vNOC Managed Services platform, AppDynamics’ Application Intelligence Platform, Sumo Logic’s Machine Data Analytics offering, and Trend Micro’s Deep Security for instance protection. It’s offered to customers for a monthly fee with no upfront costs.

Cloudnexa worked with each firm to adjust their pricing models for this offering to provide the bundled package as-a-service: customers pay a monthly fee equivalent to the percentage of their monthly AWS spend to consume the service, which makes it easier for customers to consume and utilize. Already in line with how Cloudnexa offers their services to customers, the Cloudnexa team worked through different customer scenarios with each firm to develop a level of comfort with the model and to help them adapt to how the offering would be consumed. According to Musselman, “It’s pretty pioneering how Cloudnexa’s approached this.” Tying everything together is AWS. “AWS is the center of gravity for this solution,” said Matthew Polly, Head of Business Development and Global Alliances at AppDynamics.

Next Steps

Released in September 2014, the fully managed premium service has continued to be optimized for the AWS platform.  Initial feedback from existing as well as new prospective customers was excellent, with clients expressing interest in the consolidated offering and others needing one or two components of the service.  Driven by this customer feedback, Cloudnexa is now offering the premium services on a consolidated or ala carte basis.  “We want to offer customers the tools they need to mitigate business risk by presenting a suite of necessary services that they can consume on an as needed basis without significant upfront costs – the premium service in the full or ala carte basis provides just that,” said Davne.

The joint offering of these four APN Partners came to market because of the feedback of customers, and according to Polly, the continued development of the offering is “going to be customer-driven. We want to focus on insuring that customers get a lot of value out of the solution, and leverage the learnings from their implementations. When you focus on what the customer wants, and on their expectations, it leads you to the right decisions.”

To learn more about this product offering, click here.