Anyone attending the UK’s premiere cloud computing event, the AWS Summit London, will have been impressed by the ambition of businesses to take advantage of the transformational possibilities offered by the cloud.
The AWS team, and their many global, enterprise customers shared detailed information to help delegates:
- understand cost optimisation
- plan for migration
- evaluate big data applications on AWS
- build apps in less than an hour
- understand how to take advantage of the new products available (and with over 700 new products in 2015 alone, that is no small feat)
Our team left the event with three key observations:
Start-ups and AWS lead to industry disruption
Start-ups today are, with very few exceptions, building their businesses on the cloud, due to the low initial investment required and the ease of scaling with demand. The disruptive threat posed by these companies to larger, more established businesses still operating on premises felt very real.
Reluctance to adopt can lead to unmanaged risk
Amongst established SMEs and enterprise businesses, adoption levels are high. One cannot help but feel some concern for those organisations who have not yet made a thorough investigation of the cost, security and agility benefits offered by AWS.
As technology agnostics, we always take care to recommend the solution that best meets customer needs, now and in the future. We would never make a universal recommendation for any one solution.
Yet, most attendees, from industries as diverse as publishing, utilities, construction and Internet of Things (IoT), were very firmly of the belief that almost total migration was a case not of if but when.
The failure of some businesses to evaluate the feasibility of migration, and to calculate a TCO (total cost of ownership), leaves them in an increasingly vulnerable position given the proven cost and risk benefits of AWS hosting.
The opportunities ahead
Total migration remains an aspiration rather than a reality for larger, established businesses. Organisations are choosing to migrate specific projects and processes. Sometimes this is attributable more to internal structures and priorities than to strategic planning. The scope for further cost reductions, security improvements and speed of processing remains huge.
How we help
We are offering free discovery workshops and free proof of concept work to AWS London Summit attendees who wish to move more quickly, at a lower risk, with the support of our AWS certified architects. We have significant experience in this area, having delivered projects, which include:
- a global user community that supports up to 76 million users
- a global, multi-currency, multi-company trading system
- a disaster recovery solution with auto failover to AWS
- a data warehouse and analytics solution for the NHS
- a corporate website with high availability and scalbility
Case Studies
See how we’ve used the best technologies available to help our customers achieve success.

Standard Wool – Remote Desktop Service
Making a move to the cloud with a secure infrastructure solution.