AWS Partner ClearScale Launches ‘Powerful’ Cloud Migration Platform

From seamlessly migrating on-premise customers to AWS to helping businesses get off complex Microsoft licensing, ClearScale One is a new platform aimed at acceleration AWS cloud migration.

ClearScale is making cloud migration to Amazon Web Services easier than ever by launching ClearScale One, which provides customers with an end-to-end migration and cloud modernization strategy without the typical financial and operational burdens associated with large migrations.

From helping customers get off Microsoft software licenses to boosting ROI for on-premise clients, ClearScale is enabling businesses to get off legacy systems with its new ClearScale One platform.

“It’s so overwhelming for a customer to think about a migration and then have to unwind all these pieces of the puzzle to make it happen,” ClearScale’s CEO Jimmy Chui tells CRN. “ClearScale One is a repeatable program incorporating partners, technologies, methodologies and services that were carefully and strategically designed to help customers modernize their applications and infrastructure on AWS.”

San Francisco-based ClearScale is an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner who has completed over 400 AWS migrations and more than 1,000 AWS cloud projects for clients.

ClearScale One Breakdown

ClearScale One designs, implements and manages customers through a five-phase AWS cloud modernization journey.

It begins with developing a plan and creating the operating platform needed for a successful AWS adoption—such as security infrastructure, landing zones and operational models. ClearScale professionals then execute the implementation and migrate the applications to AWS.

ClearScale then pushes cloud optimization and modernization efforts while maintaining full management of the customer environment. The solution provider can then become the customer’s long-term partner for modernization post migration, or for new feature and application development once in the cloud.

“Businesses need to focus on their core competencies and not try to be the best they can at managing infrastructure,” said Chui (pictured). “We’re bringing together all the practices we’ve been doing so that customers can have a smooth path.”

AWS MAP, AI And Partnerships Help Costs

On the financial front, ClearScale is leveraging AWS cloud migration partner incentives—such as AWS’ Migration Acceleration Program (MAP)—to help customers with the transition, along with providing total cost-predictions.

“AWS runs programs to help customers, not only get on to AWS, but to take their Microsoft licensing and reduce it by either: getting off Windows, moving from .NET to .Net Core and going on to Linux-based containers which reduce the overall Microsoft licensing footprint,” Chui said. “Also, part of the funding can be used for getting off of Microsoft SQL Server and on to like a PostgresSQL or some other technology.”

For businesses with physical data centers, ClearScale leverages its ISV partnerships to convert capital assets into OpEx models or extend hardware support while transitioning to AWS.

To ensure modernization, ClearScale uses advanced code-level examination tools to analyze application architectures and provide targeted guidance. By integrating AI-driven insights, ClearScale One rapidly processes large volumes of data to build a strategic migration plan and a compelling business case, Chui said.

‘You Basically Need A Lawyer To Understand’ Software Licensing

Chui said businesses can’t just look at cloud migrations as a purely financial decision.

ClearScale One enables companies to leverage the benefits of AWS for the same costs they would otherwise spend on legacy IT systems, which helps customers embrace cloud computing as a valuable business driver rather than another IT tool.

“If you only look at the migration as, 'OK, what’s the cost of me running my data center versus the cost of me running in the cloud?’ To just do that level of financial comparison, you may fall short on your business case,” Chui said.

“When you start looping in things like your very complicated licensing—a lot of the larger vendors’ licensing, you basically need a lawyer to understand the details of everything. So we have experts that we partner with that say, OK, go assess their licensing and let’s see what it looks like on AWS?’” Chui said. “It’s a powerful platform.”

ClearScale One provides experts and a tool-driven evaluation of a client’s current IT infrastructure, including detailed assessments of complex licensing situations and cloud migration pathways.

“There’s a multitude of things that we can do to address hardware that we’re bringing to the table. Maybe customers aren’t thinking, ‘What do we do with our current hardware?’ Or ‘Hardware support just ended, and we’re being pressured to sign another two-year commit when maybe we only need six months to do the migration?’ Well, we’ve got solutions for that too,” Chui said.

ClearScale One Targeting Enterprises, Large SMBs

Migrating from on-premise to the AWS cloud becomes challenging if a business has hundreds of virtual machines (VMs) they need to move.

“Our ClearScale One platform is targeting complex, large environments. So anywhere north of 500 VMs, it starts getting a level of complexity that requires additional oversight and scale,” said Chui.

ClearScale’s CEO said the new offer is targeting larger SMBs and enterprises who want to make the move.

“It’s all about how customers can leverage cloud as part of their business strategy rather than, ‘It’s just some IT asset we pay for,’” said Chui. “There’s a clear difference between those two. That’s what we hoped to achieve by walking in there with something very comprehensive, so that executives and technical folks alike can see the full path.”