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SOVEREIGN CLOUD CASE STUDY
Kalaam Telecom simplifies sovereign cloud for Middle East businesses
Based in Bahrain, Kalaam Telecom launched in 2005 as a traditional voice services operator.
Fast-forward to today, and Kalaam has transformed into a leading digital solutions provider, with operations across the Middle East and a rich portfolio of services for SMEs, enterprise customers, government agencies and global telecoms carriers.
Now Kalaam is extending the cloud services part of its offering, using Virtuozzo to create sovereign cloud services that simplify cloud adoption, migration and transformation for its customers.
Fast-growing Middle East telco creates a unique sovereign cloud service with Virtuozzo
Simplifies cloud for private and public sector organizations across the region, as part of a full set of digital solutions
Extends cloud services with DevOps/ML/AI friendly cloud, and user-friendly VMware-based virtualization
Serving a gap in the cloud market
Kalaam has been active in the cloud services space since 2018, and cloud has become an increasingly important part of a services blend that encompasses connectivity, cybersecurity, ICT, datacenter services, managed networking, big data and IoT.
The company’s latest developments in cloud services, however, were led by a recognition that there was a gap in the market for a new kind of infrastructure and platform-as-a-service capability, as Pramod Deshpande, Kalaam’s Group Senior Manager of Cloud Services, explains.
“We began helping customers with cloud when AWS came to Bahrain in 2018. Today we still work with different hyperscalers, VMware, and other cloud technology vendors: we can address a wide range of different requirements to suit each customer project,” he says. “However, hyperscale cloud is not always the best fit: there was an opportunity and demand for a Kalaam cloud that we could tailor for local customers, that we could fully control.”
“Hyperscale cloud is not always the best fit: there was an opportunity and demand for a Kalaam cloud that we could tailor for local customers, that we could fully control.”
Pramod Deshpande
Senior Manager of Cloud Services
The alternative cloud for the Middle East
Kalaam chose Virtuozzo as the platform partner for its new cloud – but what was the company trying to achieve? According to Pramod, there were two overarching customer needs: cloud services that were easy to adopt, and services that had a fully localized, sovereign cloud ethos.
“Some people equate hyperscale cloud with large enterprises, but that is not always true,” he says. “Even large businesses realize that the size of the hyperscale bill is not actually the full cost of the cloud, because there is complexity and a time / management cost that comes with it. For us, Virtuozzo’s user-friendly cloud platform and cloud orchestration was a great alternative.”
“Even large businesses realize that the size of the hyperscale bill is not actually the full cost of the cloud, because there is complexity and a time/management cost that comes with it. For us, Virtuozzo’s user-friendly cloud platform and cloud orchestration was a great alternative.”
Why choose Virtuozzo?
Kalaam’s new Infrastructure-as-a-Service cloud is based on Virtuozzo Infrastructure, which the company sourced through VAD, a specialist distribution partner based in UAE.
“We have worked extensively with different cloud providers, platform vendors, pricing models and technology,” says Pramod. “We have hyperscale cloud partners, we have cloud infrastructure based on VMware, but for sovereign cloud with the simplicity the market needs, we went with Virtuozzo because of its intuitive multi-tenancy, self-service and orchestration capabilities.”
“For sovereign cloud with the simplicity the market needs, we went with Virtuozzo because of its intuitive multi-tenancy, self-service and orchestration capabilities.”
Sovereign cloud is not just about compliance
In terms of sovereign cloud, Kalaam was thinking not just about data sovereignty, data location and compliance with local legislation. Sovereignty is just as much about local service for Kalaam customers in Bahrain, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other nations.
“We offer local infrastructure, local support, local account management, and a team that will handle everything a customer needs,” says Pramod. “Hyperscale cloud has a steep learning curve, and tends to limit a business to what is available from a drop-down menu on the website. Kalaam Cloud takes away that complexity, and gives customers flexibility.”
According to Pramod, building their own cloud was vital to controlling that customer experience.
“With our own cloud we can control the customer experience, and the Virtuozzo platform is streamlined and easy for us to manage as the service provider, so it is easy for us to take care of our customers,” he says.
Simplifying DevOps and VMware cloud too
Kalaam is also extending its IaaS cloud with Platform-as-a-Service capabilities based on Virtuozzo Application Management. This both complements and extends the potential of the company’s simple sovereign cloud services.
“Another benefit of working with Virtuozzo is its complementary containerized cloud platform,” says Pramod. “It means we can help customers extend VM-based virtualization into Platform-as-a-Service, and start their journey to modernize applications. It also means we can offer advanced cloud services for the cloud-native computing market that is looking ahead to ML, AI and other emerging technologies, and offer seamless DevOps cloud integration for companies building those services.”
Kalaam still offers a range of cloud and virtualization services based on VMware. Here too, Virtuozzo has solutions that help bring the simplicity ethos to Kalaam customers, as Pramod explains:
“There are a lot of changes in the VMware space right now, but we have customers that still depend on VMware virtualization. Virtuozzo’s VMware solution gives us the modern multi-tenant, self-service capabilities we need, without the additional cost and complexity cost of the full VMware suite.”
“For sovereign cloud with the simplicity the market needs, we went with Virtuozzo because of its intuitive multi-tenancy, self-service and orchestration capabilities.”
Support, partnership and the future
Kalaam Telecom reports a great relationship with the Virtuozzo team, during deployment and into production – and positive feedback from customers.
“Virtuozzo Professional Services were excellent during deployment, we get the support we need, and customers have already migrated from other platforms to our new Kalaam Cloud,” says Pramod. “We’re excited about growing our Kalaam Cloud business over the coming years.”
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