A Cloudy Seattle

Ahh Seattle. Despite the familiar gray patchwork sky, the city in which I grew up in, seems, different. The vibe is different. The city landscape is different. Heck, even the Seahawks managed 5 consecutive winning seasons. As I listened to each training session at the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Strategic Partner training, I pondered this difference.

I left Mercer Island at 18, attended Santa Clara University, started a company, and joined the fun in Silicon Valley. "The Valley", we call it, is without a doubt the epicenter of much of the world's remarkable technology. Ask anyone and you'll conclude that this is an open and shut case. However, ask those same people about Amazon.com's business model, "technology company" rarely comes up. Ask someone outside of Seattle where Amazon calls home, the Emerald city is not the popular response.

And then it hit me. While I've been at the epicenter, Amazon.com has been, somewhat quietly, building a technology empire. My Sea-town, home (sic) of the Shawn Kemp Sonics, biggest fan base of The Boz, has an innovative spirit unseen since the early Microsoft days. There's a buzz in Seattle.

But I digress...

What's really exciting for us, and should be exciting for you, is how game-changing the services offered by AWS are today. Cloud Computing is here, and it's real, and Amazon.com (the retail company!?) is leading the charge.

Whether you venture into this world on your own, or you choose an experienced partner like Crankapps to help you get there, the end result is very promising. Huge cost savings, increased time to market, disaster recovery plans, you name it, it's attainable.

Thanks Seattle.

How to Save $250,000 by Migrating to the Cloud

How much time and money do you spend on your infrastructure to keep your apps and other systems running? Do you have under-utilized servers? Do you have system administrators on staff that are only required in emergencies or when something needs changing? Moving your systems into the cloud can drastically reduce inefficiencies and the cost of running your infrastructure.

Zoopla, a UK based real estate site, saved £200,000 pounds (approx. $260,000 USD) in its first year of operations by using Amazon Web Services (AWS). Using AWS meant no data centers, no sys admins, no network equipment, etc.

“We learned that even with a decent-sized systems team that maintaining your own hardware platform is a time-sink and to do so within a tight budget can result in big constraints on responsiveness & flexibility,” Kain (co-founder) comments.

True, true.

“The cycle of procuring and installing servers or upgrades can be a distraction, especially when you’re busy trying to make the company grow,” says Kain. “It’s very difficult to anticipate hardware demand under those circumstances, and the cycle of negotiating discounts, ordering, waiting for delivery, installing/configuring software, scheduling data-centre time to install the physical hardware – it’s a drain on a growing start-up with tightly-controlled costs. And that’s just server growth – unanticipated hardware failures can have a terrible impact on productivity.”

If this sounds familiar, you need to talk to us. We will make you as happy and stress free as Zoopla, and then some. Remember, we stay up all night so you don't have to.

Read more about Zoopla's success on the cloud.