Mazda shifts content platforms, hosting partners

Mazda Australia's online presence has been overhauled, with the company refreshing not just its Web design and content for the launch of the new model of Mazda3 but also the CMS driving the site and the car manufacturer's hosting partner.

The new site went online at the start of February said Vito Monitto, Mazda Australia's web systems manager.

The content refresh and new platform brought the site into line with the European Mazda sites. The company moved content management systems from Sitecore to EPiServer, Monitto said.

Mazda Australia also opted for cloud hosting for the site, with mazda.com.au now hosted on Amazon Web Services' public cloud. Mazda tapped managed cloud services provider Bulletproof for hosting, Monitto said.

"We [thought] while we were changing platforms why not have a look at the hosting solutions; as an organisation we decided to look at a few options," Monitto said. The combination of Amazon and Bulletproof "basically ticked all the boxes as far as our requirements go," he added.

"I think it was one of those cases that we always want to look where we're heading as far as cloud goes," he said. The flexibility of being able to scale with cloud is one of its appeals, he said.

Bulletproof also "ticked all the boxes on the administration and monitoring side."

"I guess what tipped them over the edge is [also] probably the month-by-month type of agreement, rather than being locked in for a year or two years with a hosting provider," Monitto said. "That flexibility of being able to if you want to — which I'm not planning on — actually pull out and go somewhere else quite easily."

Bulletproof was founded in 2000 and launched a VMware public cloud in 2006. The company launched its managed Amazon Web Services offering in 2012. It is currently AWS's only Premier Consulting Partner in Australia and New Zealand (out of 22 around the world).

Bulletproof listed on the stock exchange in January this year through a reverse takeover of Spencer Resources. The company said it was Australia's first publicly listed "pure-play cloud services company".

In its 1H FY14 results Bulletproof said its AWS-based revenue increased to 11 per cent of recurring revenues. The company reported overall revenue of $8.1 million for the half year.