INTERVIEW – As a ‘pure-play’ Infrastructure-as-a-Service hosting provider headquartered in the Amsterdam region, 3W Infra turns out to be growing at a fast pace – delivering highly customized IaaS hosting solutions to its customers worldwide. Hostingjournalist.com sat down with 3W Infra’s CEO and founder, Murat Bayhan, and its Managing Director, Roy Premchand, to talk about their business secrets and future plans.
3W Infra commenced its operations in Amsterdam, the Netherlands just a few years ago, in 2014. Remarkably, 3W Infra now already has 4,000 dedicated servers under management, 1,000 dedicated servers more than about half a year ago. Quite impressive, we must admit. Any business secret you want to share with us, Mr. Bayhan?
“Our business strategy for delivering IaaS hosting services is a very, very focused one, that’s why we call ourselves a ‘pure play’ IaaS provider,” says Murat Bayhan, CEO and founder of 3W Infra. “Quite some IaaS players out there choose to include cloud in their business proposition, for example. We don’t. We deliberately don’t do cloud. Based on our long-standing history working for some of the largest hosting companies in the world, we saw a need for an IaaS offering that wouldn’t be able to raise any channel conflict. 3W Infra’s certified and experienced engineers provide enterprise-grade engineering services to our global clientele, but we’re focused on the hardware stack. As such, we do enable the IT channel to implement state-of-the-art cloud infrastructures for their clients. Our pure-play IaaS hosting services, including dedicated servers, colocation, IP Transit and remote hands allow CSPs, SIs, MSPs, hosting providers and others to focus on growing their core businesses.”
So 3W Infra’s business proposition is high up in the hosting supply chain. But, let’s say, if any of 3W Infra’s somewhat larger accounts would ask your company to deploy and manage a cloud platform for them, would you consider it?
“As said, our focus on delivering pure IaaS is our strength. We’re not interested in making a quick buck, we’re here for the long term. Even if this client you mention – a hypothetical one of course – would pay us well for deploying their cloud infrastructure, it might lead to another customer thinking we’re able to touch their cloud services accounts. That’s why we’ve added 1,000 dedicated servers to our servers under management in just six months time. Next to 3W Infra’s high customization levels and high quality of engineering services, it’s the result of our highly focused go-to-market strategy.”
You’re mentioning customization as an asset that’s appreciated by 3W Infra customers. Is this an asset that makes you stand out of the crowd?
“Quite some customers just ask for regular equipment and configurations, for example standardized dedicated servers based on Dell PowerEdge R530 or R230,” says Roy Premchand, Managing Director of 3W Infra. “We’re actually deploying quite a lot of these types of Dell dedicated servers, but more than half of our clients require customized solutions – also highly customized configurations for demanding applications. Sometimes it’s based on Dell equipment, sometimes Supermicro or HP is preferred for the configuration required. But we’re actually able to deliver any hardware brand or configuration, something that’s highly appreciated by 3W Infra customers. Of course, most IaaS providers don’t like highly customized work as it’s not that good for their margins, but we really don’t mind – as long as it makes our customers feel good.”
3W Infra operates a fast-growing business. Recently 3W Infra also launched Remote Hands services on the world’s main Internet hubs in Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London. Are you contemplating further expansion to other countries at the moment?
“Actually, during one of our weekly management meetings we’ve just spoken about an intend to add a data center location in the near future, probably in Hong Kong or U.S. West-Coast,” adds Mr. Bayhan. “Our high volume network with currently more than 160 Gigabit/sec of bandwidth available has a true global reach, but we’re always on the lookout for network improvements – for example when it comes to further optimizing low-latency performance into China. Especially our online gaming customers would love that, but also for financials it would add great network improvements in that region.”
Last question, 3W Infra’s transit-only, global backbone network does not make use of peered traffic. Why is that?
“Some people have the idea that peering-based networks allow for cost-efficiency in network traffic. During our longstanding history working in the hosting industry however, we have witnessed quite some occasions where it is not an optimal solution for clients – not in terms of route quality and definitely not in terms of costs. Our blend of carrier-based network bandwidth is based on well-negotiated wholesale prices. It also reflects modern needs of enterprises and other customers with business-critical applications, as we now can provide them with a robust 100% network uptime guarantee through planned network routes. The same goes for our data center infrastructure in Amsterdam by the way, which features an enterprise-grade 2N configuration for a 100% power uptime guarantee.”
About 3W Infra
Founded in 2014 by some Internet and hosting industry veterans, 3W Infra is a ‘pure-play’ Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) hosting provider headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The company’s enterprise-grade hosting solutions – tailored to the specific needs of each customer – are engineered for scalability and cost-efficiency, with cloud-enabling services including colocation, dedicated servers, IP Transit, and high-level customer support. These solutions come with 3WInfra’s Remote Hands engineering services at the world’s main Internet hubs in Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London. At the moment, 3W Infra’s global network exceeds 160 Gigabit/sec (Gbps) of available bandwidth. The company’s customer base includes some of the largest Internet, broadcasting and cloud services companies in Europe and beyond.
To learn more about 3W Infra, visit: www.3winfra.com.
