​Melbourne IT inks deal with 2nd Watch in cloud migration push

Australian internet services company Melbourne IT has inked a cloud partnership deal with US-based public cloud management player 2nd Watch.

The new alliance is expected to extend the cloud migration capability that Melbourne IT offers to local organisations, and enable a "new wave" of cloud innovation.

The deal sees 2nd Watch -- an Amazon Web Services (AWS) premier consulting partner -- initially provide local Melbourne IT customers with its Cloud Factory service, which automates the migration of enterprise workloads to the public cloud.

The service will be offered for a fixed price in Australia and New Zealand under the terms of the partnership, which Melbourne IT enterprise services general manager Peter Wright said introduces a proven, advanced datacentre migration and consulting service to the local market.

"[2nd Watch] has validated expertise and capabilities around cloud migration which, combined with Melbourne IT's managed cloud solutions expertise, will bring significant opportunity for Australian businesses in the cloud space," said Wright. "Cloud adoption in the US is more advanced than Australia. 2nd Watch has proven success in the US with leading brands such as Yamaha, Condé Nast, and Lenovo."

The finalisation of the agreement between Melbourne IT and 2nd Watch comes after more than a year of conversations between the two companies, both of which are AWS premium partners, with 2nd Watch co-founder and strategic business development executive vice president Jeff Aden saying that the deal made "perfect sense".

"We can provide the expertise of our large-scale cloud migrations to Australian customers who are just starting out with widespread adoption of cloud migration services," said Aden. "This realisation follows conversations which took place over the last year between 2nd Watch and Melbourne IT around the rate of cloud adoption in Australia and New Zealand."

The partnership sees Melbourne IT, listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, work to further diversify its product portfolio, following its AU$15.5 million acquisition in February of Canberra-based cloud services provider Uber Global, which also happens to play in Melbourne IT's traditional business of domain name registration.

In November last year, Melbourne IT also moved to build out its social media offering, with a one-off AU$1.25 million investment in social media marketing company Tiger Pistol.

Melbourne IT said at the time that the investment was made to "cement the strategic partnership and guarantee security and access to products", and that it would offer the service to both its existing customers with established websites, and its new customers.