Verizon Business Expands Cloud Computing Capabilities In Europe

AMSTERDAM, Sept. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon Business has extended availability of its comprehensive on-demand, "cloud-based" Computing as a Service (CaaS) solution to the company's Amsterdam data center. The announcement reinforces the company's strategy of expanding cloud-computing deployment resources around the globe to meet the stringent security, performance regulatory requirements of business customers.

In June, Verizon Business announced its CaaS offering with the provisioning of the service in its U.S. data center based in Beltsville, Md. Additional CaaS locations are planned in the Asia-Pacific region in 2010.

The service, which leverages Verizon's world-class global IP infrastructure and data centers, enables mid-market and larger companies to use a Web-based portal to employ computing resources in the quantities and duration dictated by the companies' business needs. As a result, businesses pay only for the resources used and avoid having to build out for peak capacity requirements by buying new equipment and adding staff.

The Amsterdam location particularly benefits companies doing business in Europe and elsewhere that need to operate under a "safe harbor" privacy framework that calls for a European-hosted location, or want to use facilities located closer to their European locations.

The Amsterdam data center is part of Verizon Business' secure global infrastructure, which the company's network and security professionals proactively manage under a program developed by the Verizon Cybertrust Security team. Verizon's data centers are also audited for physical security.Additionally, Verizon Business has built strong security features into its CaaS offering. These include secure connections to customer-provisioned resources, as well as a multi-tiered network with a virtual firewall, and an audit trail for all changes.

Customers can also opt for a third tier of optional, add-on security services including identity and access management, host intrusion detection, application vulnerability assessment, network application assessment, and professional security services.

Verizon CaaS is supported by rigorous service-level agreements to ensure enterprise-class performance and rapid server provisioning.

"With the activation of our Amsterdam facility, our customers can take advantage of a new era in cloud computing, using the location that makes the most sense for their business," said Stuart Curzon, group vice president for international sales, Verizon Business EMEA. "Verizon Business offers what we believe is an unsurpassed degree of security, coupled with guaranteed performance and all the efficiencies that come with on-demand IT."

Verizon CaaS is ideal for new development projects, major events, mergers and migrations because it enables organizations to easily and quickly shift IT resources as required. It is also well-suited for businesses with seasonal demands, such as retailers or sales promotions, that drive incremental traffic to Web sites.Verizon Business worked with a broad range of leading technology providers -- including HP, VMware and Red Hat -- to deliver its next-generation computing solution. This advanced architecture lets customers provision both physical and virtual server environments to best accommodate the type of application being deployed -- a key differentiator of the service. For example, a business may want to use a virtual environment for staging and development. For business-critical applications, such as database servers, businesses may choose a physical server infrastructure that lets them customize servers as well as select from a range of server configurations.

Verizon CaaS is part of Verizon Business' extensive portfolio of IT and hosting solutions aimed at helping customers improve their IT infrastructure and boost application performance in today's complex, dynamic business environment. Supported by a global team of professional services experts that deliver a broad range of world-class capabilities and backed by a secure and reliable technology infrastructure, these solutions allow customers to meet their most pressing IT needs.