AWS Superstars Join Forces: REAN Cloud Buys 47Lining To Gain Big Data, Machine Learning Expertise

Fast-growing Amazon Web Services solutions provider REAN Cloud has purchased 47Lining to strengthen its capability around creating dashboards and reporting.

The Herndon, Va.-based company, No. 459 on the CRN Solution Provider, said acquiring Niwot, Colo.-based 47Lining will bridge a technical competency gap, enabling REAN to move up the chain in the decision-making process, according to Sri Vasireddy, a REAN managing partner.

"We needed an anchor to position ourselves in that space," Vasireddy told CRN. "Amazon trusts them like they trusted us in our earlier days."

[Related: REAN Cloud Doubles Down On DevOps with Acquisition Of Opex Software]

Although 47Lining has just 20 employees, Vasireddy said AWS isn't afraid of presenting them to larger enterprises given their expertise around big data analytics, machine learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT). Nineteen of 47Lining's 20 employees are engineers, most of whom bring years of experience and deep domain expertise to the table, according to Dan Connolly, EVP of Rean's customer business group.

REAN Cloud has, until now, stuck to more of the "plumbing" functions associated with the data pipeline, Vasireddy said, which include moving data around, massaging data and loading up data warehouses. All of the analytics and machine learning functions, though, were left to line-of-business leaders in the end user organization since REAN didn't have the capability to do that on its own, according to Vasireddy.

Going forward, Vasireddy said REAN plans to load 47Lining's intellectual property into its data pipeline platform to better service the entire enterprise organization. REAN has historically serviced the end user's IT and operations teams, Vasireddy said, while 47Lining has typically been laser-focused on the client's data decision-making team.

"That's really where they're most attractive to us," Vasireddy said. "We need to bring it all together."

If one part of an organization enjoys their experience in AWS, they typically want other departments to join them in the public cloud as well to maximize efficiencies, according to Vasireddy. Terms of the acquisition, announced Wednesday, were not disclosed.

REAN has enjoyed 100 percent year-over-year growth rates for each of the past two years, Vasireddy said, and achieved premier consulting partner status in the AWS partner network faster than any other company in the network's history.

Existing 47Lining customers will benefit from REAN's industry-leading DevOps-based transformation capabilities in the application space, Vasireddy said. This enables organizations to roll out agile apps that can be updated every minute and hour of the day to maximize responsiveness to the end customer, according to Vasireddy.

47Lining clients will also benefit from REAN's ability to bring affordable, around-the-clock global operations to the table with facilities in both the United States and India, Vasireddy said. The two companies likely have just one of two common customers, which in turn provides a large upsell and cross-sell opportunity, Connolly said.

REAN tends to focus on verticals with high regulatory, compliance and security requirements such as health care, life sciences, financial services and the public sector, according to Connolly, while 47Lining typically devotes itself to sector with more mature data analytics and IoT capabilities such as retail and manufacturing.

Vasireddy hopes the 47Lining acquisition boosts REAN's revenue, gross margins and EBITDA, maintains a strong cashflow for the company, and increasing market share and margin for 47Lining's business. REAN also hopes the deal boosts the company's thought leadership position in the AWS ecosystem, particularly as it relates to data analytics, Connolly said.

REAN maintains the 47Lining brand for an undefined amount of time, according to Vasireddy, and over time make a determination on whether or not to phase the company name out.