Why Choose the Arch Platform Over a System Integrator? The Platform Advantage for Cloud Workstation Resources.

In today’s fast-evolving digital landscape, businesses face a critical choice: how to best architect their IT infrastructure to meet demands for agility, scalability, and cost-efficiency. For organizations relying on cloud workstations, storage, and compute farms, the decision often boils down to partnering with a traditional System Integrator (SI) or adopting a modern Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform. There are strong arguments for the latter, particularly when combined with Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud resources, offering unparalleled advantages that empower businesses to thrive in hybrid-cloud and cloud-first environments.

The Power of Arch as a Platform Solution

Arch is a software layer built on the AWS cloud platform that enables the rapid configuring, deployment, and management of workstations, storage, compute farms, and networking. The brokering of workstations and an end-user portal are included. Arch securely maintains all resources within the client's AWS account and eliminates the overhead of complex cloud DevOps engineering. Here’s why this matters:

Speed of Deployment

The Arch Platform enables clients to deploy their own AWS infrastructure in an hour, anywhere in the world. Provisioning, configuring and deploying workstation computers takes minutes. 

Whether Arch’s clients are a creative studio needing GPU-intensive resources or an engineering/scientific organization augmenting workstation and storage infrastructure, identity provider integration (IdP) and orchestration through the Arch Platform ensures they are operational faster, without the delays of traditional integration cycles.

In contrast, System Integrators often require months of planning, procurement, custom building, and configuration to deliver a tailored solution. 

Scalability and Agility

Business needs fluctuate. The Arch Platform taps into AWS’s elastic capabilities allowing customers to adapt compute power, storage, or compute farm nodes up or down. This flexibility eliminates over-provisioning costs and ensures resources align with real-time requirements. However, a System Integrator typically designs a rigid solution that meets today’s requirements but struggles to adapt to tomorrow. 

Cost Efficiency and Transparency

The Arch Platform, orchestrating AWS elastic infrastructure, operates on a pay-for-what-you-need model. In addition, the Arch Platform enables customers to optimize resource allocation to minimize waste. This predictable cost structure empowers businesses to redirect savings toward innovation rather than overhead. Working with a System Integrator often involves opaque pricing. Consulting fees, markups, and ongoing maintenance contracts can balloon budgets unexpectedly. 

Streamlining Operational Complexity

AWS’s robust suite of tools can be challenging to tackle. Arch Platform Technologies streamlines this complexity, providing a unified interface to manage your cloud workstation, storage, and compute farm environment. Whereas a System Integrator’s approach is often difficult to manage internally (increasing reliance on external support), the Arch Platform automates provisioning, monitoring, management, and optimization, freeing your IT team to focus on strategic priorities.

In addition, Arch’s clients benefit from ongoing platform version improvements managed with feedback from a foundation of highly correlated workstation workload clients, with a consistent and carefully vetted release cycle (i.e. no code forks that make ongoing management difficult, risky and costly). Trialing the Arch Platform is simple.  Trialing an SI solution is not as easy or straightforward, implying a number of related risks. 

Seamless AWS Integration 

Arch is built specifically for AWS, leveraging the power, footprint, and reliability of the world's leading cloud workstation infrastructure provider. Arch handles the complexities of AWS orchestration so their customers don't have to. Clients benefit from the vast array of AWS services and strategic partners, including EC2, S3, and more, all managed through a single, unified platform.

Hybrid-Cloud and Cloud-First: The Best of Both Worlds

Not every organization is ready to abandon on-premises infrastructure, nor should they have to. Arch Platform Technologies champions both hybrid-cloud and cloud-first strategies, leveraging a direct connection between on-prem and AWS to bridge the gap. The Arch Platform facilitates access to on-prem and cloud workstation infrastructure through a single-pane-of-glass.

The System Integrator Trade-Off

A System Integrator’s approach often locks organizations into rigid architectures that lack the adaptability, development efficiency, and maturity of a well developed platform. Custom solutions typically require ongoing vendor support, creating dependency, while hardware-centric designs can’t match the agility of AWS’s global data centers. In an era where speed and flexibility define success, this traditional model feels increasingly out of step.

In Summary, Why Arch?

The Arch Platform provides fully managed, highly automated cloud workstations, storage, and compute farm orchestration within AWS. This approach eliminates the complexity, time, cost, and inefficiency of custom SI-built solutions, offering several key advantages:

1. Rapid Deployment & Automation

With Arch Platform Technologies, cloud environments can be provisioned in minutes rather than weeks. Arch’s cloud infrastructure orchestration platform utilizes AWS-native services to allocate resources, ensuring consistency with rapid, scalable deployment.

2. Cost Efficiency & Optimization

Through intelligent orchestration and brokering, Arch ensures that right-sized cloud resources are deployed only when needed, minimizing waste and optimizing cost. The Arch/AWS platform and usage model eliminates hefty fees associated with SI engagements, and it provides important ongoing new releases with unified Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) for constant improvement.

3. Seamless Scalability & Flexibility

Arch supports a hybrid-cloud or cloud-first strategy. And, unlike SI solutions, the Arch Platform offers unparalleled scalability, effectively serving the needs of both small-to-medium businesses and the world’s largest enterprises. Users can quickly deploy templated GPU-powered workstations, storage solutions, and compute farms, adapting to project requirements in real-time.

4. Integrated Security & Compliance

Security is built into the Arch Platform from the ground up, leveraging AWS best practices for identity management, encryption, and network segmentation. Arch provides pre-configured compliance-ready solutions, including support for AWS’s latest API Gateway and PrivateLink technologies.

5. Centralized Orchestration & Management

With Arch, IT teams gain full visibility and control over cloud resources and end-user usage through a unified dashboard. SI solutions often limit themselves to rudimentary and poorly integrated options that require significant maintenance and ongoing optimization.

6. Global Collaboration & Remote Access

As remote work becomes the norm, Arch enables design teams, engineers, and developers to access high-performance cloud workstations from anywhere in the world. This flexibility is particularly valuable for hybrid-cloud workflows, where teams need seamless access to both on-prem and cloud workstations.

The Platform Choice

Businesses that embrace a platform-first approach with Arch and AWS position themselves to outpace competitors, adapt to disruption, and capitalize on opportunity. Whether you’re hybrid-cloud or cloud-first, the Arch solution offers the freedom to build, scale, and succeed on your terms.

Interested to learn more? Let Arch Platform Technologies demonstrate how our AWS platform solution can transform your workstations, storage, and compute farms, without the integrator middleman.  

Contact Arch Platform Technologies