Image via
Wikipedia
Savvis, an established market leader in the managed hosting market, made an
entry into the enterprise cloud computing market, by announcing the first of its
several other cloud computing initiatives this year, called Savvis Cloud
Compute. As I emphasized in my 2009 predictions, this is going to be the year of enterprise
cloud computing.
In short, this year is going to be the beginning of a big time adaption of
Cloud Computing by the enterprises.
Whether it is IBM’s Blue Cloud Initiative or their teaming up with Amazon Web Services, we are already seeing a
trend towards the “private clouds” in the enterprise segment. This move by
Savvis only consolidates this existing trend. Late last year, Savvis tried to
lure ISVs with their scalable managed hosting initiatives. At that time, they also
formed a strategic partnership with Skytap, a Seattle based Cloud testbed provider. With today’s
announcement, they have put their foothold firmly into the Cloud Computing
marketplace.
Savvis Cloud Compute offers virtual data center hosting and private cloud
solutions targeted towards enterprises. They try to differentiate themselves
from other providers like Amazon by claiming that they offer an opportunity to
cut costs without having to sacrifice the security or performance. One of the
biggest worries of enterprise customers in using Amazon EC2 is about its
security. Savvis is trying to position themselves as someone who could offer
better security based on their extensive experience in the managed hosting in
the past.
Savvis Cloud Compute comes with two different versions. One is the dedicated
private clouds based hosting and the other is the multi tenant hosting that can
be tapped for peak bursts. Enterprises can just rent resources during the peak
times like holiday shopping, major events, etc.. and, since it is on a month to
month basis, these excess resources can be tapped on an as per the need
basis. This will save tons of money for the already cash starved
enterprises.
These offerings are tied to the new SavvisStation portal, released as a part
of their cloud initiative, from which customers can add/remove servers and
storage capacity automatically and in minutes. The portal also comes with a
reporting tool that can help enterprise customers optimize their IT spending by
anticipating the demands and acting on it. Earlier, all these things were
managed manually by the Savvis tech personnel and they couldn’t offer the near
instantaneous addition or removal process of this new dashboard. Since any delay
in the deployment of resources costs money to the enterprises, this portal is a
great value addition.
IDC estimates a $42 billion Cloud Computing market by 2012 and companies like
IBM, Amazon, Savvis, etc. are positioning themselves for the land grab. These
are interesting times in the Cloud Computing market even though the rest of the
world is struggling under the grave economic crisis.
