Amazon the target for Microsoft and Verizon

A sure sign that the cloud is now mainstream is that a growing number of service providers are pitching at providing an `Amazon-Plus’ services. They are targeting the growing acceptance of hybrid cloud, with its combination of the best of on-premise, private and public cloud services, as the practical solution to the enterprise cloud environment.

Microsoft and Verizon, through its Terramark division, are the latest to pitch in on this market, and both are making serious noises directed straight at the enterprise marketplace.

Microsoft has announced a wave of new enterprise products and services for Azure that complement Office 365 and other services. It has recognised that most enterprises are now moving towards a hybrid approach to cloud, so is aiming to help customers utilise their investments in on-premises software solutions toward the adoption of cloud computing. This strategy maps on to the suggestionsrecently made in Cloud Services World as to the company’s possible plans with regard to its acquisition of the Nokia mobile phone capability.

As of November 1st ,Microsoft will offer Enterprise Agreement (EA) customers access to discounted Windows Azure prices, regardless of upfront commitment, without overuse penalties and with the flexibility of annual payments.

It has also announced a strategic partnership with Equinix aimed at providing enterprise users with more options for private and fast connections to the cloud. This follows on from recently announced partnerships with AT&T and others.This will allow customers to connect their networks with Windows Azure at Equinix exchange locations, getting greater throughput, availability and security features.

“As enterprises move to the cloud they are going to bet on vendors that have best-in-class software as a service applications, operate a global public cloud that supports a broad ecosystem of third party services, and deliver multi-cloud mobility through true hybrid solutions,” said Satya Nadella, Cloud and Enterprise executive vice president. “If you look across the vendor landscape, you can see that only Microsoft is truly delivering in all of those areas.”

The new products and services are to be released over a period of time, starting with Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2. The new Windows Azure Pack runs on top of Windows Server and System Center, enabling enterprises and service providers to deliver self-service infrastructure and platforms from their datacentres.

These will be coupled with the release of Visual Studio 2013 and the new .NET 4.5.1, as the applications development component.

Also coming this month is a second preview release of SQL Server 2014. The new version offers in-memory technologies at no additional cost, giving customers 10 to 30 times performance improvements without application rewrites or new hardware. This also works with Azure to give customers built-in cloud backup and disaster recovery.

Big data analytics is not forgotten, with Windows Azure HDInsight Service soon to appear. This is an Apache Hadoop-based service that works with SQL Server and widely used business intelligence tools. BYOD is also covered, with the release of Windows Intune, which combines with System Center Configuration Manager to help IT departments give mobile employees security-enhanced access to the applications and data they need on the devices of their choice. For the desk-based there will be a new Remote Desktop app, available for download in applications stores.

The company’s Dynamics services range also gets an update, with new versions of Dynamics CRM and Dynamics NAV 2013 R2. The latter offers small and midsize businesses interoperability with Office 365, full multitenant support, and a range of tools designed to support large-scale hosting of the application on Windows Azure.

Meanwhile, Verizon is pitching itself at what it calls a reinvention of the Enterprise Cloud. Its new Verizon Cloud combines a cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform with a cloud-based object storage service. This, it claims, is fundamentally changing how public clouds are built by combining the agility and economic benefit of a generic public cloud with the reliability and scale of an enterprise-level service.

It starts a public beta program sometime this quarter. In order to ensure personalised service for each beta customer, access to Verizon Cloud Compute and Verizon Cloud Storage will initially be limited to a few hundred new users per month. Customers awaiting their turn will be welcomed into the Verizon Cloud Insider program, which will enable them to be kept up-to-date on feature availability and other improvements as they occur.

The Cloud Compute component is built for speed and performance. Virtual machines can be created and deployed in just seconds, and users build and pay for what they need. They can also determine and set virtual machine and network performance, configure storage performance and attach storage to multiple virtual machines. Previously, services had pre-set size and performance configurations. The company claims that no other cloud offering provides this level of control.

“This is a breakthrough approach to how cloud computing is done,” said Bryson Koehler, chief information officer at weather forecast company The Weather Company. “Weather is the most dynamic dataset in the world, and we also use big data to help consumers better plan their day and help businesses make intelligent decisions as it relates to weather. As a big data leader, a major part of The Weather Company’s go-forward strategy is based on the cloud, and we are linking a large part of our technical future to these services from Verizon.” 

Verizon Cloud Storage is an object-addressable, multitenant storage platform. Object storage is claimed to offer a robustness and reliability ideal for cloud-based applications. It overcomes latency issues that have plagued many traditional storage offerings, providing improved performance.

“We are putting control and choice back in the hands of the user, while still addressing their needs for availability, performance and security,” said John Considine, chief technology officer of Verizon Terremark. “We started from scratch, building the core components we felt necessary to achieve that goal.”

These new services are backed by the company’s global IP network, managed security services, and global datacentres in Culpeper, Va., Englewood, Colo., Miami; Santa Clara, Calif.; and in Amsterdam, London, and Sao Paolo. Initially, clients will be served out of the Culpeper data center, with other centers around the globe expected to be added through mid-2014.