Partner Article

Virtual 1 selects Abiquo

Company profile

Virtual1 is a leading wholesale network provider specialising in delivering bespoke cloud and connectivity solutions within the wholesale marketplace. With the flexibility to provide customers with cloud and connectivity solutions to fit their needs and the tools to build and manage even the most complex solutions, no two Virtual1 solutions are the same.

Through multiple interconnects with leading UK and global carriers, Virtual1 allows access to one of the widest network footprints available. This, coupled with expansive interconnect covering over 230 countries and territories, means that businesses can reach their customers no matter where they are.

Virtual1: the requirements

After providing wholesale connectivity for a number of years, Virtual1 has seen an increasing demand for cloud services. Specifically, its connectivity partners are increasingly requiring the opportunity to resell combined cloud and Wide Area Network (WAN) solutions. This is due to more companies looking to exploit virtualisation technologies without incurring new capital or having to upskill employees in order to operate the complexity of the modern virtualised infrastructure.

The main cloud management platform requirement was the ability to have multiple brands on the same platform, with a security model that allowed Virtual1 to build a complex reseller/customer model. In addition, it needed a simplified interface that provided access to extensive functionality of the virtualisation layer with the ability to establish a hierarchy of access. In short, it required an orchestration layer that allowed:

-Virtual1 overarching visibility

-Its clients visibility over their customers’ services

-Their clients’ customers to see only their particular enterprise and controlled resources in the two distinct architectures Virtual1 intended to construct

Overall, Virtual1 needed a cloud management platform it could confidently hand over to its partners and their customers, which was simple to use, and allowed features to be added as its own product matured.

Finding the right solution

Virtual1 always intended to construct two distinct architectures to maximise resiliency, but required the orchestration layer that could control resources in both. Alongside this, Veeam and Datadomain were selected as the backup functionalities, and this was something that a cloud software provider needed to support. In addition, the business challenge Virutal1 was looking to address was to provide a competitively priced wholesale cloud offering to the channel market in the UK.

After looking at numerous cloud platform providers, Abiquo’s software and services offered the ultimate solution Virtual1 was looking for, including the unique feature of a highly flexible security model that Virtual1 were looking for to implement their reseller structure. It also offered the simplicity and ease of use for partners and customers to create new virtual environments without the need to deal with the underlying technologies, which was an added and unexpected benefit.

Results

Virtual1 built its hardware and connectivity over the course of three months, establishing the optimal physical topology, processes and staff training. It then worked with Abiquo over a six week period in order to install, adapt and optimise the orchestration layer of the customer-facing portal.

“After looking at a number of options, we chose Abiquo because of its ability to expose the extensive functionality of the underlying infrastructure in a way that is simple for our partners to use. We appreciated the genuine interest from the Abiquo developers in our strategy and the valuable support provided throughout the projects,” said James Hickman, CTO at Virtual1.

Commented Abiquo COO Ian Finlay; “We’re delighted to have been selected by Virtual1 for their new offering. It’s great to be able to have value added resellers provide their customers with the benefits of an Abiquo cloud platform, while Virtual1 handle the running of the software, infrastructure management and metering of usage .”

Abiquo’s cloud management platform is now an essential product in the Virtual1 market and is expected to be a significant contributor of new revenue. In addition, its implementation has meant the organisation has started to recruit a different breed of partner and has significantly grown its addressable market.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ian Finlay .