Hosted Solutions Offers 'Stratus Trusted Cloud' Platform

RALEIGH, NC, June 8, 2009 - Hosted Solutions, the East Coast's premier provider of IT infrastructure as a service (IaaS), today introduced the Stratus Trusted Cloud, a robust, enterprise-class cloud solution that dramatically improves the efficiency and availability of IT resources and applications for small- and mid-sized enterprises.

Stratus offers a massively scalable, multi-tenant infrastructure that enables customers to access a secure, enterprise-class cloud environment with built-in high availability and automated resource balancing. As a result, businesses can move faster and control costs without compromising availability or security. This is of particular benefit to small- and mid-sized enterprises, which might normally be able to afford the costs associated with such high-end infrastructures. Moreover, Stratus is designed to provide an added level of assurance to companies that their data and entire infrastructure is being administered in a trusted manner, acting in accordance with a full range of governance, risk management and compliance (GRC) regulations.

"Working with major Hollywood studios, media companies and advertisers requires us to work with large amounts of video data. As part of our work, we need to be able to rapidly scale up our access to more storage space and processing capability," said Matt Berry, Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of DigitalSmiths. "Trying to do all this in house can take time, money and detract us from focusing on our core capability.

"By introducing the Stratus Trusted Cloud, Hosted Solutions will enable us to simply and automatically get the resources we need in less time and at a fraction of the cost. We also have the added benefit of dealing with a reliable, trusted partner who we know has our best interests in mind," Berry added.

Hosted Solutions has partnered with market leaders VMware, Sun, EMC, Cisco, F5 and Juniper to deliver Stratus Trusted Cloud. Since it is built on the industry's most robust, scalable, fully redundant architecture, Stratus delivers unmatched performance, availability and security with 99.99% SLAs. By making this service available, Hosted Solutions is leveraging its proven experience in hosting production environments for more than 80 percent of its 800 customers, including household names and market leaders such as Belk, Atlanta Falcons, Channel Advisor, Lowe's Motor Speedway, Sony Ericsson, Motricity, and more. The company will also bundle its "hi-touch" consulting approach, allowing clients to design and implement customized solutions that meet their specific requirements, instead of the "shrink-wrapped" approaches frequently offered by its competitors."For nearly a decade, we have built our business around delivering best-in-class service at every level for our customers," said Rich Lee, Hosted Solutions' founder and Chief Executive Officer. "The Stratus Trusted Cloud continues that tradition. It is a cloud platform that provides the benefits of strategic IT infrastructure support - enabling our SME customers to run their production environments, even as they realize the cost, time and efficiency advantages that are increasingly associated with cloud computing."

Companies can use the Stratus Trusted Cloud to take advantage of rapid and elastic deployment and usage, with the ability to add or subtract resources depending on changing requirements. For instance, clients can increase their compute capacity in minutes versus the weeks traditionally needed to deploy the same type of infrastructure traditionally. As a result, fewer physical and staffing assets are required, resulting in significant Capital Expenditure (CapEx) cost savings.

"While many firms are actively exploring the real benefits of cloud computing, many are still reticent to make the move without help from a partner who can maximize the chances of success," said Dave Nielsen, co-founder of CloudCamp, a series of worldwide conferences designed to provide a common ground for the introduction and advancement of cloud computing. "Hosted Solutions' methodology, implemented through the Stratus Trusted Cloud, helps those companies gain that level of comfort needed. It's good for them, and for the industry."

Working with top-tier technology vendors ensures that Hosted Solutions will deliver unparalleled service with full redundancy and guaranteed uptime; this is an imperative for companies that require high-availability, around-the-clock functionality to stay ahead of market demands. More than just data, the Stratus Trusted Cloud will deliver an entire infrastructure/production environment seamlessly administered for maximum reliability. Services such as cloud-based business continuity, shared load balancing, virtual desktop infrastructure, security, applications management and more will be provided at Hosted Solutions' five secure data centers located along the East Coast, in North Carolina and Boston.

About Hosted SolutionsHosted Solutions' high quality Data Center and Managed Hosting services maintain and protect customers' mission-critical IT systems and applications, enabling them to reduce operating costs, lower the risk of downtime, focus on core competencies, and achieve their top business objectives. The company operates SAS 70 Type II Certified facilities in Boston MA, Charlotte NC, Raleigh NC, and Cary NC, providing best-of-breed data center operations with hardened physical infrastructure, the highest level of security, and a complete managed services portfolio. Hosted Solutions was acquired by Boston-based private equity firm ABRY Partners in April 2008 for $144 million. For more information, please visit www.hostedsolutions.com.