Mission Cloud had a banner year in 2024, including growth with AWS, a new partnership with CrowdStrike, and being acquired by global technology company and services provider CDW. Channel Insider spoke with Mission Cloud President Ted Stuart to learn more about the solutions provider’s next steps as a newly acquired company.
Mission Cloud’s AWS focus pays off for them and clients
Mission Cloud offers migration, security and GenAI services exclusively through AWS products for clients in the United States commercial segments, including at the enterprise, small and medium-sized business (SMB), and start-up levels. For Stuart, that focus has enabled his team to become true experts in the AWS ecosystem.
Stuart also said that for a team the size of Mission’s, at around 250 employees, building and maintaining relationships with one hyperscaler is enough of a time commitment to not need or want to break into selling alternatives, like Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure.
“Candidly, just keeping up with AWS and the various announcements and opportunities, that’s a really big job on its own,” said Stuart. “There is so much to room to grow inside the AWS ecosystem, we see no reason to go and take on another relationship and offer something additional.”
Longstanding commitment to security now includes CrowdStrike tools
At AWS re:Invent in early December, Mission Cloud was named the AWS Security Partner of the Year for the second consecutive year, a clear indicator of how seriously they approach security with clients.
“Security is baked into everything we do, and for almost all customers, security is a top three, if not the top, priority for them as well,” Stuart said. “We do a lot of migrations for our customers, and ensuring their new environments are secure from the start is important.”
Stuart noted that Mission also offers fully managed security to clients who are interested in receiving security work from Mission after migration. Now, thanks to a recently announced partnership, that security approach includes tools from industry leader CrowdStrike.
Announced in December, the new Mission Cloud Secure offering is a fully-managed cloud detection and response program powered by CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform and Mission’s existing security solutions.
“Mission Cloud Secure empowers AWS customers with a unified solution that integrates CrowdStrike’s cutting-edge Falcon Cloud Security suite and managed threat detection and response (MDR) with Mission’s cloud expertise,” said Daniel Bernard, chief business officer at CrowdStrike, in a press release. “Together, we provide unmatched cloud protection, enabling businesses to focus on growth and innovation while staying secure in the face of evolving threats.”
CDW acquisition opens new opportunities for Mission Cloud
In December, global provider of technology CDW announced that it had acquired Mission. Now, the Mission team will work alongside CDW to build a dedicated AWS practice within the organization. Stuart said that while the organization had considered acquisition as a growth strategy for the last several years, CDW felt like the only perfect scenario.
“We are, truly, beyond excited to be acquired by CDW and now become their dedicated AWS practice. This gives us opportunities to grow we would not have had alone, but it allows us to maintain our focus on AWS and utilize our expertise and relationship within the AWS network,” Stuart said.
Additionally, Stuart said he and his team are now excited to utilize CDW’s size and existing resources to pursue additional avenues within the vast AWS ecosystem, including US public sector customers and global clients, too. Stuart noted he and his team, as well as AWS, have wanted to see Mission expand into public sector clients, but the proper regulatory and compliance infrastructure required to do so would have been difficult to attain without additional resources.
The two companies also complement each other in AWS Connect and GenAI offerings, as well as expertise in both VMware and Nutanix migrations. The two companies together, according to Stuart, can offer more to customers than either could separately.
“All of this gives us the ability to expand into new markets, and we’re already identifying opportunities with existing CDW clients where we can offer services that weren’t previously available,” Stuart said.
2025 will be the year of production for AI projects
Mission Cloud has enabled its customers’ AI adoption for years, jumping on the train before the availability of tools like ChatGPT ushered in the age of GenAI. Now, as demand for such tools has exploded, Stuart sees the year ahead as an opportunity to move from proof of concept to execution.
“This last year we saw a lot of proof of concept work and experimentation,” Stuart said. “The next phase in the maturation of the cycle is to take that and put those work loads into production.”
Between ongoing demand for GenAI solutions, increasing needs for security, and plenty of opportunity in migrations and computing with AWS, Mission Cloud, together with new owner CDW, is poised for a year of growth in 2025.
AWS continues to invest in its partner ecosystem. Read more about the recent additions and changes made to several aspects of its partner program in our coverage of AWS re:Invent 2024.