Communications giant Verizon announced it was looking to help
businesses aiming to boost bandwidth, add more servers and turn up
additional storage capacity to meet changing business needs with the
company’s cloud computing offering, Computing as a Service, SMB. The
solution, aimed at SMBs (small to medium-size businesses) joins
Verizon's CAAS (Computing as a Service) portfolio of cloud computing
services.
With Verizon CAAS SMB, customers can customize the server, storage
and network resources required to manage a Web presence or enable
company applications. The solution also 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
accessed in the future, a company release noted.
“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."
Verizon's offering is tailored to companies that have limited IT
resources and do not want to own or manage their IT
infrastructure. Delivering a flexible, 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. The company said the solution
might also appeal 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, the
company noted.
"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."
Immediately available in the United States, the offering offers a
host of features, including a Web-based console, server cloning, which
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 and fully
redundant architecture.
"Verizon Business is evolving to an 'Everything-as-a-Service' model
in which cloud-based, converged solutions are delivered with built-in
security via managed and professional services over our global IP
network," said Gray. "The launch of Computing as a Service, SMB is
another step in that evolution."
Cloud Computing 
