cloudDNA – Established 2012
Almost hard to believe that cloudDNA turns ten this month🤯
Back in 2012, when the internet of things wasn’t really a thing yet, software defined networking was just getting defined and London had just hosted the Olympics our founders formed the company on a kitchen table with a couple of laptops and some crazy ideas about better UX and lower cloud service delivery costs. More often than not, featuring NetScalers.
There’s been lots of change over the last decade, with amazing technical innovation, stacks of new industry acronyms and a global pandemic thrown in for good measure, so a good time, we thought, to pause and reflect on some of the highlights and notable achievements of the first ten years in the history of cloudDNA.
2015 – Achieved Citrix Networking Specialist Accreditation global first and awarded Citrix Gold partner status
We’ve always been focused on the technology and were thrilled to become the first global partner to be recognised by Citrix for our technical expertise when we achieved the Networking for Data Centres Specialist accreditation back in 2015, the same year we achieved Gold partner status.
2015 also introduced us to a new way to improve service delivery to branch locations and re-imagine the network ready for a hybrid cloud delivery model, the product we now know as Citrix SD-WAN.
2018 – Won Growth Partner of the Year NEMEA
Co-founders Jo Wright & Al Taylor collecting the Growth Partner of the Year Award NEMA 2018
Fast forward a couple of years and Citrix SD-WAN has become a major part of our business with the 1st UK product sale, the 1st UK project delivery and the 1st UK partner to deliver a 1000+ branch deployment.
We add ISO27001 to our ISO9001 accreditation and 2018 also gave us a defining moment in our history when we picked up the Citrix EMEA Growth Partner of the Year Award in the US, recognising our 3x year on year product sale growth for 3 consecutive years.
2019 – Awarded Igel Gold Partner accreditation
We’ve always been vocal about our Citrix relationship, but we started 2019 with an Igel Gold Partner accreditation following significant growth in Igel OS adoption in customers across all sectors.
2020 – Achieved Citrix 2021 Specialist Accreditation first
2020 kicked off with Citrix announcing a revision to the 2021 Specialist Partner accreditation criteria at their annual partner conference in Orlando. We were straight out of the blocks and did it again, achieving the new 2021 Citrix Networking Specialist Accreditation 7 months ahead of official release, further demonstrating our commitment to providing our customers with the very highest levels of technical proficiency.
2021 – Awarded Citrix Platinum Partner Status – This was a big one!
Achieving Citrix Platinum Status has always been one of our key objectives since the day we founded in 2012, 3,224 days later and we got there! We were one of the top 8 Citrix Partners in the UK by revenue following a massive year of growth in 2021, even following the standards of our Growth Partner of the Year in 2018.
First Global Citrix Secure Internet Access project as a replacement to zScaler ZIA
With a zScaler Internet Access (ZIA) subscription renewal due and a growing list of operational challenges presented by technical limitations with the product, we helped a long term customer understand how Citrix Secure Internet Access could potentially be a better fit.
Working closely with Citrix both in the UK and EMEA, we collectively demonstrated how the Citrix solution ticked more boxes and ultimately became the weapon of choice in the constant battle to keep users and data safe in an increasingly hybrid service world. With thousands of users, this was also the largest deployment in EMEA to date.
2022 – Shortlisted for Solution Installation of the Year at the Technology Reseller Awards
It was great to see our name on the shortlist for the Solution Installation of the Year at the Technology Reseller Awards for our Igel project with Markerstudy.
The initial fanfare was around the £1m saving made by avoiding a forced Windows endpoint hardware upgrade, we’ve since re-visited the project’s success with sustainability as a focal point. It‘ll make a good read when we write it up to go with the official case study video that Igel commissioned to go with the wide industry and sector press at the time.
2022 and beyond – On the road to Net Zero
It’s become apparent that we spend a lot of our time helping organisations deliver more efficient digital services and while that used to be all about making budgets go further, it’s increasingly about sustainability as we’re all becoming more focused on our own impact on the Earth and the implications of the choices we make.
On Earth Day 2022, we announced the closure of our office in Buckinghamshire in the UK, to save the thousands of Kg of CO2 created in both keeping the building running and the energy consumed during the commutes of the various team members to get there on a daily basis and offering that work life balance that so many of us strive for.
What’s next?
We continue to work closely with Citrix, maintaining seats on the invitation only Global Partner Technical Expert Council and EMEA & UK Partner Executive Councils, helping our customers stay one step ahead of the technical and commercial aspects of their Citrix investments and helping the vendor shape the product roadmap in to 2023 and beyond.
As we head towards net zero accreditation in 2023, we’re not just changing how much energy we consume. While we’ll continue to work closely with Citrix, Igel and the newly revised ‘NetScaler Inc’, we’ll be introducing some new vendors throughout 2022 and into the new year. As usual keep an eye on our social channels to keep up to date with all the latest developments.
As we light the candles on birthday cake number 10, we’d like to say a sincere thanks to all our customers, partners, and of course to our amazing team who help us make it all possible – so far, so good!
Thank you for being part of our journey, we’re super excited to see what the next decade has in store!
Stay safe, big love and thank you all again 🙏🏼❤️
Jo Wright & Al Taylor, Co-founders and the cloudDNA team.
