Orange Business Services launches cloud computing service

Stuart Corner
Monday, 29 June 2009 19:08

Business IT - Technology

Orange Business Services (France Telecom) has become the second global telco in a month, after Verizon Business, to offer large enterprise companies IT resources 'on-tap' under a cloud computing model.

According to Orange Business its service, dubbed 'Flexible Computing' allows businesses to outsource a part or all their IT infrastructures, based on virtual technology accessed either over an Orange Business Services VPN) or over the Internet.

"Flexible Computing offers completely customisable virtual server architectures to address the growing demand in terms of performance, availability and of security," Orange Business says. The service is designed to accommodate "all businesses, from small to large."

Orange Business says the number of virtual machines, the processor speed as well as the amount of RAM and hard disk space are completely configurable. "No investment is entailed and expenses are limited to a monthly service plan and installation costs, meaning that businesses keep their IT budget tight."

All hosting is carried out in Orange Business Services ISO 9001 certified data centres. The company has given no indication of whose technology the service is based on.

The service seems very similar that launched by Verizon Business in early June. Dubbed Computing as a Service (CaaS) it provides its enterprise customers with IT resources such as servers, network and storage 'in the cloud' and accessible on demand via a web portal.

Verizon Business says this enables organisations to employ computing resources in the quantities and duration dictated by their business needs, paying only for the resources used and avoiding having to build out for peak capacity requirements by buying new equipment and adding staff.

The Verizon service is being rolled out now in the US and Europe and will be rolled out to the Asia-Pacific region in August.