BASKING RIDGE, N.J., Sept. 14. Boosting bandwidth, adding more servers and turning up additional storage capacity to meet changing business needs quickly are among the many things small and medium-sized businesses now can do affordably with Verizon's new cloud computing offering, Computing as a Service, SMB. The new offering joins Verizon's Computing as a Service (CaaS) portfolio of cloud computing services.
Verizon's new offering is tailored to companies that have limited IT resources and do not want to own or manage their IT infrastructure. Delivering a flexible, high-performance, pay-as-you-go, on-demand offering, CaaS SMB is suited to smaller businesses such as retailers, manufacturers and professional services firms as well as independent departments within larger organizations. It also appeals to online businesses and application developers who want to code, test and stage in a reliable and scalable cloud environment. All that's needed to get started is a credit card.
With Verizon CaaS SMB, customers can customize the server, storage and network resources required to manage a Web presence or enable company applications. Unlike many other available cloud offerings, Verizon CaaS SMB offers built-in security including virtual private networks while allowing companies to add more security features. CaaS SMB also lets companies retain previous computing configurations of their data and servers so data can be easily accessed in the future.
"We are bringing the power of a high-performance, secure cloud environment to our small-business customers to meet their specific need for on-demand computing resources," said Carrie Gray, Verizon Business executive director of medium business. "This new offering will help SMBs tap cloud technology to be more agile, productive and cost effective so they can better compete in today's global economy without having to build and maintain a high-capital, high-maintenance infrastructure to meet their IT needs."
Immediately available in the U.S., the new offering offers a host of rich features, including:
-- Simple, Web-based Console - The Web-based console is easy to use and
does not require an IT or technical background.
-- No Minimum Commitment, No Term Contract Required - Businesses can
start today and only pay for the resources utilized. Server pricing
starts at less than 4 cents per hour.
-- Fully Redundant Architecture - The cloud computing service is designed
for full backup, ensuring high performance and availability.
-- Server Cloning - Server cloning lets organizations make a carbon copy
of any server for backup protection, development version control or
rapid deployment of additional capacity into load-balanced virtual Web
farms.
-- Hardware Load Balancing - Enterprise-class integrated service load
balancing is available in the cloud, allowing capacity to be shared
among a company's virtual server farm.
-- Comprehensive Choice of Operating Systems - CaaS SMB is adaptable to
almost any operating system and comes complete with templates for a
broad range of systems.
-- Compatible with Existing Apps - Verizon's VMware vCloud(TM)
Express-based platform doesn't lock an organization into specific
programming language. Windows and Linux apps will run on CaaS SMB,
right off the shelf and without modification.
-- Built-in Security - With Verizon's built-in security, SMBs can quickly
lock down their network and create or delete firewall rule sets on
demand. In addition, companies can work with Verizon to tailor a
specific security program to meet their individual needs.
"On-demand, pay-as-you-go cloud computing solutions offer SMBs much-needed flexibility, cost-effectiveness and control for their IT operations," said Melanie Posey, research vice president at IDC. "Services such as Verizon's CaaS SMB deliver these benefits from a business-grade platform that features embedded security, redundancy and compatibility with existing systems."
