Becoming a Cloud Partner: Journey of Cloud.in

In this very unique segment of DQ Channels, we have covered Pune based Cloud.in becoming a Cloud Partner from a traditional Channel Partner. Rahul S Kurkure, Founder and Director, Cloud.in.  shared his entire journey about how did he move to the cloud business, challenges, growth, and future vision. 

When and how did you move to Cloud Business?

Cloud.in, a born-in-the-cloud platform is the flagship brand of Hostin Services Pvt Ltd., which started its operations in 1999 in Pune, India, amidst the first dotcom boom. During our journey, we have been through many transitions and transformations. In the year 2008, we began to offer datacenter services and in 2012, we launched our self-hosted cloud offering.

Cloud.in, as a brand was launched in 2016 after Hostin became AWS Partner in India in 2015.

Today, Cloud.in is an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner, Solution Provider and Public Sector Partner. We serve large enterprises, Digital native businesses and startups across all sectors, including Media and Entertainment, BFSI and Edtech. Going forward, we plan to extend as a Multi-Cloud Services provider and SaaS Solution Provider.

Previously on Cloud Partner Journey: Vintech Electronic Systems

What are the different Cloud services do you offer?

Cloud.in empowers organisations with its wide range of Cloud Solutions, such as, Cloud Consulting, Planning and Implementation, Migration and Modernization, Managed Cloud Services, FinOps, SecOps, Automation & DevOps, Cost Optimisation and Resource Augmentation, Content Delivery & Edge Security Solutions, besides Media Solutions. Our Intellectual Platforms include, Freedom (Multi-Cloud Billing and Management Platform), Cloud Advisor (Multi-Cloud Security Advisory Tool), Edge Insights (Edge Analytics and Intelligence) and VFORT (Secure Edge Delivering Platform).

What sort of changes have you done to move to the cloud within the organisation in terms of Team, skill set, infrastructure, and others?

Our team at Cloud.in is 100% cloud certified. With cloud services being used across almost all sectors, cloud computing professionals are in high demand.  Our team’s skills and capabilities include, Assessment and Migration, Edge Security and Bots, Application Development, DevOps, Data and Managed Services among others.

We conduct in-house training on a regular basis, that helps in honing the skills of our team members. We periodically add fresh talent, especially, Cloud Engineers, Cloud Architects and Cloud Security Experts. Additionally,  we conduct regular internal training, gamedays and encourage our employees to take up online cloud computing courses and upskill themselves.

How your old and new customers adopting the new technology and moving to the cloud?

Cloud.in, as an organisation continues to believe in personalized service to all customers. With over two decades of experience in deploying and managing Mission Critical workloads across different sectors, we have a good understanding of the customer pain-points.  We work at configuring tailor-made solutions as per their requirements, suitable to their budgets.  Our old customers understand the importance of migrating to the cloud and we are helping them in moving from the datacenter / on-prem infrastructure to cloud. New customers have specific needs with cloud computing and we are catering to them.  We have migrated and are managing services for a significant number of customers in large and leading enterprises across E-commerce, financial services and media sectors, on AWS. Being a game-changer in Cloud offerings, Cloud.in has numerous endorsements from its customers and the industry in general.

What are the different challenges did you face in this journey?

Like any other growing IT organisation and next-gen start-up, we did face some initial hurdles with respect to developing a talent pool with the right skills.   However, we have been fortunate to hire skilled professionals who have grown with our organisation.  We have always focused on remaining open to new opportunities, took calculated risks, continued to learn and delivered what we promised to our customers, and continue to do so.  Cloud.in is a Customer Centric organisation and believes in delivering exceptional and amazing customer experiences.

What is your overall growth being a cloud partner?

From day one, our growth is on an upward trajectory.  As an AWS Cloud Partner, it's been an amazing journey and we continue growing at a phenomenal pace.

What are your future goals?

We look towards a 100%+ Y-o-Y growth by 2025. We are transitioning from a traditional service provider to a next-gen solution provider. We are aggressively hiring a talent pool and expanding our product offerings.  We have plans to expand our presence to international markets in the next few years.