May 23, 2012

Allstream Launches Enterprise-Grade Cloud Compute Service

By Erin Harrison
Executive Editor, Cloud Computing

As more businesses look to manage costs and drive new growth opportunities, IP communications provider Allstream has launched an enterprise-grade Cloud Compute service powered by SunGard.

The Canada-based company’s platform is being delivered as a service through its national IP fiber network, which has been built to support the most demanding applications and can be rapidly deployed when business needs require it, according to Dean Prevost, president of Allstream.

“Businesses are trying to manage costs while driving new growth opportunities and the cloud is an enabler to accomplish such goals,” Prevost said. “By connecting directly to the cloud through our business IP-MPLS network, customers can take advantage of the efficiency and scalability of Allstream Cloud Compute without compromising security, performance or reliability.”

Allstream Cloud Compute uses Vblock technology to offer multiple layers of protection, including dedicated virtual machines with redundant firewalls for data integrity and security, hosted and monitored 24/7 within a secure data center based in Canada. 

SunGard is a provider of disaster recovery services, managed IT services, information availability consulting services and business continuity management software.

“Our relationship with Allstream allows us to provide Canadian businesses with comprehensive, Canadian-based cloud services, providing benefits for our joint customers,” said Chris Toushan, SunGard Country Manager. “Together we deliver enterprise-class cloud solutions for both production and recovery.”

According to Toushan, Allstream Cloud Compute allows for increased agility, improved operational efficiency and cost savings by eliminating the physical servers, storage, network and ongoing maintenance costs associated with running an in-house data center on dedicated hardware. Customers pay only for the resources they need, when they need them.

In related news, SunGard Availability Services was recently recognized with a Cisco (News - Alert) Partner Summit theater award for Cloud Partner of the Year in the service provider category, TMCnet reported.

According to the officials from Cisco, SunGard has been recognized for its cloud solutions that deliver the high availability and scalability the operations demand. Enterprise Cloud Services customers can work within the SunGard cloud portal to modify their infrastructure, such as adding new virtual machines, storage or changing the firewall policy to address security vulnerability.

Edited by Amanda Ciccatelli