Creating a leg-up on hyper-scale cloud vendors: the OrionVM advantage

Today’s cloud market is ripe with offerings from the large well known public cloud companies as well as niche players. That doesn’t mean that it’s working for channel partners. Or even their end customers for that matter. One cloud provider is trying to set themselves apart from the pack by offering something that not only performs better, it helps channel partners grow their business. Yes you guessed it, that provider is us: OrionVM.

The main advantage of OrionVM comes from its technical distinctions from the hyper-scalers, especially to clients that have end solutions which require the utmost quality. As our client and partner CloudCo Partner, 888VoIP recently shared with CRN magazine the advantages of working with OrionVM offer their company the ability to offer clear voice solutions that they couldn’t find by working with any other IaaS provider.

Besides the technical advantages, partners also find the support they get by working with OrionVM to be a huge incentive to working with a niche provider versus the larger public cloud companies.

The OrionVM marketing team recently sat down with OrionVM Co-Founder and CEO Sheng Yeo to learn more about what sets OrionVM apart from the crowd.

• Q: The hyperscale public cloud providers are well established and constantly adding new features all the time. They are increasingly competitive. So how do competitors stand a chance?

SY: OrionVM’s key differentiation fundamentally stems from tech innovation – our “secret sauce” is how we have uniquely architected and built our cloud stack.  This cloud architecture, modeled on Supercomputers/InfiniBand, delivers markedly better performance/resilience at significantly reduced price-points. This tech innovation is then “bottled up” and made easily-leveragable in a white-label wholesale cloud platform that channel partners can brand and deploy it as their own.

OrionVM is in effect trying to create a new B2B category of next-gen wholesale IaaS as the “building blocks” that enable channel partners to deploy technically advanced, enterprise-grade cloud solutions that deliver high margins, control and flexibility. This category, in turn, provides IT resellers with a competitive advantage that they cannot achieve when using the incumbent public clouds vendors.

Big players in this market are great at adding features to their offerings, but they come with complexity, vendor lock-in, and minimal margins. We compete by providing our channel partners with a solid, fast, easy to use foundation they can build on themselves.

Our key differentiator is how we enable our customers to brand and launch their own cloud products and solutions, focusing on helping them transition to becoming cloud service providers (CSPs). To support this, we have built a technology stack that allows us to differentiate on the infrastructure providing the performance and margins required to run a wholesale cloud business.

We’ve also cultivated an ecosystem of channel partners each supporting various solutions such as VoIP, data analytics, enterprise application hosting, document management, even animation rendering.

• Q: What is your strategy for gaining share of the public cloud market?

SY: Our strategy is to gain market share via our channel. We are a channel focused company that believes heavily in supporting our channel partners in their journey from legacy solutions (in their role as an MSP, Integrator or Telco) to becoming a cloud service provider (CSP).

Each of our partners is a leader in their vertical or region allowing us to achieve joint success with each partner by taking a foundational approach when powering their solutions.

This strategy has seen great traction in 2017 and 2018 and we see a very busy 2019 ahead of us as the market pushes towards adoption of wholesale cloud strategies as a way to complement existing strategies.

• Q: How do you lure channel partners to use you rather than one of the big hyperscalers?

SY: We don’t see ourselves as luring as much as letting the technology platform and business model speak for themselves. Unlike the large incumbents we don’t compete with our channel, and we actively develop working relationships.

We focus every heavily on providing support to partners to build and launch their own cloud solutions. It is these mutually beneficial partnerships that results in channel partners choosing OrionVM rather than the bigger hyperscalers.

In addition to this, we are also a wholesale platform that allows us to provide margin to the channel rather than becoming a “me-too” public cloud reseller.

• Q: What can partners get from you that they can’t get from the big end of town?

SY: OrionVM provides the core building-blocks required by our partners to brand and launch their own cloud platform. Our focus is on our core competency, namely delivering ultra-efficient, high performance, cost effective cloud infrastructure. We provide a unique combination of technical and business features, including providing a multi-level white labelling to support existing channel strategies.

• Q: What do your customers tell you about why they chose you over a public cloud?

SY: Along with the higher margins and high-performance tech, 2018 represented a palpable turning point in attitudes to pricing. Partners have switched to us after being frustrated with hidden costs, opaque or non-existent communication, and the vast expense for simple features like interconnects. Our up-front, simple price structure and affordable features make it easier for MSPs, Telcos, and systems integrators to build their stacks and quote their clients.

We’ve also focused heavily on enabling our partners to build hybrid products, such as bundling their existing network (in the case of a Telco) with our cloud solution. We also provide a lot of support when it comes to productising their solutions and go-to-market strategy.

• Q: Which vendors power your offering?

SY: We use a combination of best of breed open source with our own secret sauce for orchestration and distributed storage. On the datacentre side, we work with Tier 3 data centre providers Equinix, AT&T and CoreSite for physical space, cooling and power.

In terms of hardware and networking, we leverage servers from SuperMicro and Quanta. On the networking front we utilize Mellanox Technologies, Cumulus Networks Linux and Broadcom for our Ethernet and InfiniBand hardware.
We also partner with many software and appliance vendors such as WatchGuard, Microsoft and Suse.

Conclusion:
When you take all of this background color into consideration it becomes clear that OrionVM is in a different category – our wholesale cloud offering is truly a stand out from the other options available to channel partners today.  One thing OrionVM can’t call ourselves is a follower. We do not follow the big names. We are carving our own path by focusing on what the customer needs, and how to deliver a better solution for the market. We are different and there is a need in the market for an IaaS provider who can also work with other technologies and puts the customer first. This customer centric approach creates a winning environment for cloud vendor, channel partner and the customer. Everyone wins.