Before COVID-19 there were many reasons to become a digital company. The speed and agility of cloud-based operations mean better customer service, more efficient operations, and all that lovely data to analyze for market-advantage.

But the process was expensive and complex, so many companies were hovering on the fence. Now, under the strain of a global pandemic, that fence has fallen. And companies are instead hovering on the edge of a chasm.

“What I’ve seen with the pandemic is an acceleration of digital transformation … if you haven’t done it, you’re in trouble because it’s going to eat your company alive,” said Stephen Zipperman (pictured, left), vice president of consulting services at Datalink, a division of Insight Enterprises Inc.

Zipperman and Kevan McCallum (pictured, right), chief technology officer of Maximus Inc., a government services contractor and Datalink client, spoke with Rebecca Knight, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during AWS re:Invent. They discussed the importance of experienced partners to ensure a seamless transition from on-premises legacy applications to cloud-based or hybrid operations. (*Disclosure below.)

Expert guidance and seamless integration

With over 6,000 workloads, 160-plus applications, and compliance with government restrictions making hybrid the only practical cloud model, McCallum knew Maximus needed an experienced guide for its transformation journey. “It was not a light nor easy project,” McCallum said.

Choosing Insight meant that the company also chose Amazon Web Services Inc. as a cloud provider. As well as being the clear market leader, AWS’ technology integrated best with Maximus’ existing underlying technology, according to McCallum.

“Amazon has it at the click of a button. So we were able to have environments stood up in a day rather than have to wait weeks,” he said.

This was critical when the pandemic hit. Thanks to AWS’ desktop-as-a-service offering Amazon WorkSpaces, Maximus moved almost all of its 30,000 employees remote without any disruption to its datacenter migration process.

“The integration points that Amazon offers with their interconnects is key to how we make it a seamless process,” McCallum said. This means that users can access information and processes without needing to know whether they are in the cloud and on-prem.

This is a validation of Insight’s purpose, according to Zipperman. “We believe it’s all about the workload and getting those workloads or applications in the right spot, be in public or private, and helping our customers with that journey,” he said.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent. (* Disclosure: Insight Enterprises Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Insight nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE