Sword is one of a small number of AWS Premier Tier Services Partner in the UK. Sword designs and architects AWS environments, integrates systems, migrates existing infrastructure, manages them 24/6/365 from our Unified Operations Centre, and builds AI solutions that reach everyday use. We hold four AWS Competencies, participate in key AWS partner programmes and hold seven individual AWS service approvals, awarded by AWS based on real-world customer success. It is certified to ISO/IEC 27001 for AWS consulting, solution design and delivery, service monitoring and management, and billing, and can be bought through Crown Commercial Service, G-Cloud and AWS Marketplace.
Nothing found.
Capabilities
AWS Premier Tier Services Partner. Moving you to AWS, managing it around the clock, optimising your cloud costs and getting AI into everyday use.
Successful cloud transformation starts with making the right decisions.
We help organisations assess their options, build a clear business case and define a roadmap for delivery. Just as importantly, we identify what’s already working, helping you invest where it matters most.
- Free Cloud Assessment, a short look at what you have now and where the quick wins are
- AWS Well-Architected Review, a detailed review of a live system against AWS best practice
- Cloud strategy and a costed business case
- A review of your existing systems and what should happen to each one
- Target design, and a plan staged by risk and by what depends on what
- AWS funding assessment, where your project fits one of AWS’s programmes
- Cost modelling, and the measures you will judge the result by
Every organisation is at a different stage of its technology journey. Some need to transform legacy environments. Others need to build new digital capabilities that unlock future growth.
We help clients navigate both, bringing the expertise to modernise, innovate and deliver measurable outcomes with confidence.
- New systems designed and built on AWS, from a single workload to a full platform
- Cloud-native application development
- A properly structured, secure AWS environment, built to suit what will run in it
- Migration delivered in stages, so the business keeps running while it happens
- Modernisation where the numbers justify it
- Automated building and releasing of software, so releases stop being an event
- Amazon WorkSpaces, giving people a full desktop or just the programs they need, on whatever device they already have
- Written instructions, training and a handover your team can genuinely work from
Our UK-based service desk operates 24/7, staffed by AWS-certified engineers with experience supporting environments across the globe.
Whether you need a fully managed service or targeted support alongside your internal teams, we provide the expertise, coverage and responsiveness to keep critical services running smoothly.
- Maintain service availability through 24/7 monitoring and rapid incident response
- Strengthen resilience with proactive maintenance, backup assurance and disaster recovery readiness
- Improve security, governance and audit preparedness through continuous oversight and reporting
- Ensure the right people have the right access through effective identity and access management.
Gain greater control of cloud spend through optimisation, reporting and cost management - Access a single view of operational, security and compliance performance through our Acuity cloud optimisation solution
- Extend your team with AWS-certified cloud specialists and architects when needed
- Build internal capability through practical knowledge transfer and skills development
Moving from experimentation to enterprise adoption requires more than access to AI models. It requires trusted information, robust governance, secure operations and clear accountability.
Sword helps organisations build the foundations for responsible AI adoption, enabling teams to realise value faster while maintaining security, compliance and control.
- AI maturity assessment and opportunity prioritisation.
- Strategic roadmap development.
- AI acceleration and implementation.
- Secure, governed AI platforms.
- Trusted data and knowledge access.
- Managed operations and support.
Case Study
Scaling cybersecurity examinations from three countries to more than 80
CREST
Context
CREST sets the standards for the cybersecurity industry worldwide, and its practical examinations are the hard part of earning one of its qualifications. Those examinations ran in hotel rooms. An examiner flew out, built the exam computers by hand, ran the session, then packed the whole thing away again. Three countries. Roughly once a month. A fixed cost and a full day of setup before a single candidate sat down.
Solution
Sword’s CirrusHQ AWS practice built an examination platform that builds itself. Everything an examination needs is created the moment it is booked, and cleared away once it is over. Nobody travels. Nobody sets anything up by hand. Between examinations nothing is running, so nothing is being paid for.
The team also built CRESTDrive, which lets candidates upload their own notes and files beforehand so the examination can be taken open-book
Outcome
Expanded from 3 countries to more than 80
Grew from a handful of venues to more than 1,000 examination centres
Moved from monthly examinations to daily
Reduced setup effort by 80%
Reduced running costs by 33%
Enabled CREST to launch its international capacity-building programme, which won Best Professional Training or Certification at the SC Europe Awards
Leadership Spotlight
Stephen Croke
AWS Sales Lead
Stephen brings over 20 years’ experience working with customers and partners to align technology investments with business priorities, supporting organisations through transformation, growth and change.
More Information
Sword delivers AWS services through its CirrusHQ practice, which is an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner, the highest level AWS awards. AWS re-checks it rather than granting it once. Holding it takes proven customer work, a certain number of certified staff and an audit of technical capability. The practice also holds four AWS Competencies, AWS Managed Service Provider status, seven individual AWS service approvals and more than 100 AWS certifications across the team. AWS publishes all of it on the AWS Partner Solutions Finder.
Sword does four things on AWS, delivered through its CirrusHQ practice. It designs and costs the right answer before anything is built, starting with a free Cloud Assessment and going deeper with an AWS Well-Architected Review of a live system. It builds new systems on AWS and migrates existing ones across. It runs those systems 24 hours a day from a UK service desk, covering monitoring, security, updates and cost control. And it builds AI that reaches everyday use rather than stopping at a pilot. The practice works on AWS and no other cloud platform.
Yes, and a lot of Sword’s AWS work starts that way. The team reviews the environment as it stands, agrees what needs fixing before taking responsibility for it, then runs it around the clock with monitoring, updates, security support and cost control. You keep full access and full visibility of your own AWS accounts throughout. The starting point is usually a free Cloud Assessment.
Clients
Partners
Need help?
Whether you are strengthening operational resilience, securing critical infrastructure, or improving organisational preparedness, our UK-based experts are ready to support your mission-critical operations