Home-grown cloud floats to Europe

Beverley Head
Monday, 31 May 2010 14:18

IT Industry - Strategy

Home grown cloud services company Online Business Technologies is about to open its first international data centre in Europe in response to demands from customers and prospects that they be able to keep their data geographically close.

Within the next three months OBT plans to start offering services out of a Dublin based data centre, and may also take space in a London data centre to meet the needs of UK clients. According to managing Shane Muller the spadework has also been completed which would allow the company to start offering cloud services out of a US data centre before the end of the year if client demand warrants.

Established in 1999 as what was then called an application service provider, OBT has rebranded itself as a cloud services provider in line with the more fashionable terminology.  It has also rolled out Microsoft's Hyper-V technology to allow it to offer clients access to a virtualised infrastructure, which it calls the dynamic data centre, as a service offering.

Muller said that the company has a long history with Microsoft, working with the software giant since 2001, 'when they didn't have a legal method of licensing their software for cloud providers. We worked with them to come up with an agreement to provide a hosted licensing model.'

OBT has served clients in Europe for some time, providing access to computers and services from its Australian data centre which is hosted by Global Switch in Sydney. However Muller said that 'some clients need their data living in the EU', and that others wanted to keep their data in the US in order to more easily comply with the US Patriot Act, which had led the company to plan an international expansion.

Focussed squarely on servicing the small and medium enterprise market, Muller said ; 'Our strength is working with companies that don't fit in a box.'