As a channel partner offering cloud solutions, you know how important it is to practice what you preach. To convince your customers to move to the cloud, there’s nothing better than being in the cloud yourself. For many older companies, that can mean a lot of catching up. But even if you’re part of a company “born in the cloud,” that doesn’t mean you’re done.

As I wrote in a recent post, actually implementing the cloud for their own systems is the best way channel providers can gain valuable first-hand experience with the new technology. It also fosters the trust of customers; they appreciate seeing your company using the same solutions you’re offering them. Plus, using the cloud yourself essentially creates a homegrown case study: “The cloud’s benefits are so valuable, we use it ourselves.”

“Born in the cloud” channel partners have a big advantage here, since they already run most or even all of their core systems and apps in the cloud. But even these companies have to stay current.

That’s the situation at Cetan Corp., a Chesapeake, Virginia, provider of cloud, collaboration and workload-automation solutions. Founded in 2007, the company was using cloud technology even before most people had heard the word “cloud” in this context. “We didn’t want to invest in all the infrastructures, so we used the cloud to develop our own solutions and workload automation,” recounts Mike Aquino, Cetan’s director of cloud services. “Now we have all of our servers in the cloud, and all of our dev-ops. We’ve never had any infrastructure on-site. Everything has always been in the cloud.”

This “born in the cloud” setup helps Cetan lead its customers to make their own leaps into the cloud. Cetan’s cloud-based solutions include collaboration (built around Microsoft Office 365), high-performance clouds (via Microsoft Azure), workload automation, storage, backup and recovery services, and endpoint protection.

Yet, as Aquino explains, that hardly means Cetan can rest on its cloudy laurels. Yesterday’s disruptive technology can easily become disrupted tomorrow. “Keeping up with cloud services is a full-time job,” Aquino says. “Every day, there are new services coming out, and we want to be able to offer them. That means we have to know how to use it, and then how to support our clients.”

Partners can certainly help here. Aquino and his colleagues often turn to Microsoft for training on new products and services. “They’re really trying to be partner-centric,” he says of the company, “and that has really helped us.”