Unleash the Power of the AWS Cloud With Media Temple
At Media Temple, our mission has always been to help our customers focus on running their business – rather than managing their servers – and today is no exception as we unveil our new managed cloud hosting solution for Amazon Web Services (AWS). Backed by 24/7 white glove customer support, our new managed cloud hosting services take care of repeatable SysOps-like services for our customers. That way, they can cost-effectively leverage the flexibility and scalability of AWS without having to source these services (internally or externally) and spend more time on scaling their business.
The services provided by our team of certified cloud engineers to creative agencies, web developers, content providers, SaaS and/or enterprise businesses range from architecting a brand new autoscaling environment on AWS and migrating websites and apps to AWS, to managing an existing environment already on AWS.
We asked Brendan Fortune, Media Temple’s Product Director, Cloud Solutions, for more juicy details.
Q: Why did Media Temple team up with Amazon Web Services?
Working with AWS is a natural extension to our customer-first approach: After extensive market and customer research, we decided to put our efforts into building and managing the solutions that would deliver the most value to customers who need auto-scaling for high-traffic web apps and sites – rather than focusing exclusively on the hosting building blocks (which AWS has been providing since its launch in 2006).
Our customer research included a very conclusive pilot program that we conducted a few months ago: Within a couple months, customers were coming to us for advice on whether or not the Cloud was right for them, and we identified a clear pattern. These customers were interested in high availability, pay-as-you-go billing, and treating infrastructure as code (DevOps), but they also lacked the cloud architecture expertise to fully unleash the power of the AWS Cloud. After working with each of them to turn AWS’ building blocks into the hosting solution they really needed, it was a no-brainer for us to focus on providing premium managed cloud hosting services and step in as our customers’ Cloud Architects and SysAdmins.
Q: Can you talk about AWS Advanced Tier Partner network?
We’re pretty proud of this as it really speaks volumes about the high quality of our new managed services. Due to the overwhelming success of the above-mentioned pilot program, we were able to achieve Advanced Consulting Partner status (a status that often takes companies over a year of business to achieve) even before our managed services officially launched!
Q: Who are some of the ideal customers for Media Temple’s managed cloud hosting services?
There is wide range of uses for the cloud, in general, and managed services on top. That being said, we’ve seen the most benefits from customers interested in embracing a highly available, pay-as-you-go infrastructure for large-scale projects, such as an international advertising campaign, for example. We’ve also had a lot of success working with tech-savvy customers interested in improving their DevOps so that deploying code and infrastructure becomes a job of minutes instead of hours.
Q: Can you talk about the user experience customers can expect?
It is similar to working with their own Cloud Architect and SysAdmin teams. First, we’ll want to understand the project the customer is working on – are they building something from scratch, moving something, or just need help managing and optimizing something that’s already on AWS?
Then, we’ll determine if our managed cloud hosting services are right for the project. In some instances, like building complex, global applications or high-traffic websites, hosting on the cloud is great. But in other cases, like hosting a business website or a small-scale web app, being on the cloud is likely too complicated and not a good fit.
Lastly, once a proper customer fit is determined, our Cloud Architects will get the project up and running before handing it off to our team of SysAdmins to ensure continued smooth sailing.
Q: What are the different levels of service?
All Managed Cloud Hosting customers get a subscription plan that provides, among other things, monthly service credits for various Cloud Architect and SysAdmin services. Finding the right subscription plan will primarily depend on the size of the web application or website behind it. Because of this, evaluating the needs of a project is essential before we can make any customized recommendation.
There are a total of four plans: Essential, Advanced, Premium, and Executive. They are all detailed here.
Q: Are Media Temple’s new managed cloud hosting services inclusive of AWS costs?
No, AWS costs are separate. Due to Amazon’s pay-as-you-go business model and the custom nature of most cloud projects, it doesn’t make sense to bundle them together. As a result, we charge a flat fee that is not tied to our customers’ AWS usage.
Q: How can someone get started?
Our cloud engineers can help businesses identify the services they need (for free) and determine whether or not there is a good fit. Customers who are interested can sign up here for a free consultation.
