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Enterprise-grade cloud computing, at the swipe of a card

By Internet Solutions
Johannesburg, 14 May 2013

Internet Solutions (IS) today announced the company's Public Compute-as-a-Service (CaaS) offering can now be purchased on a pay-as-you-go basis using a credit card.

The IS Public CaaS platform, available through a Web-based portal, enables developers, independent software vendors, small-to-medium-sized businesses or large corporations to easily access enterprise-grade cloud services with pro rata pricing, so users only pay for what they use.

"The IS Public CaaS service offers flexible pricing options for access to IS's highly available, enterprise-grade public server environment, which can now be paid for using a credit card. There is no monthly fee, contract or vendor lock-in with this service," explains Barry Hatfield, business development manager: Cloud services at IS. "This self-service cloud solution therefore offers enhanced ease of use, greater flexibility and unrivalled value to finally deliver true on-demand utility computing to the local market."

Users are billed based on CPU, RAM and storage hours used, outbound data transfers, software units or multi-location or multi-geographic data centre usage. "Users can also deploy one Cloud Network (VLAN) free, then pay hourly for any additional VLANs. They also only pay for additional public IP addresses added to those already included in a Cloud Network," continues Hatfield.

"With access to this fully automated environment, clients can be up and running within minutes, with the capacity and processing capabilities of IS's public cloud infrastructure at their immediate disposal," he says. IS boasts 11 data centres across five countries: six in South Africa, two in London and three in Africa. These data centres enable co-located environments with over 12 000m^2 of co-location space and 20MW of power in the data centres, all of which run multi-GB connectivity to the core.

Users can set up a virtual server environment with networking and security rules, and rapidly deploy more servers and processing power on the fly. The system can also be controlled through an API, allowing applications to be developed to right-size automatically, based on load and demand. The servers can then be turned off when they aren't required, and spun up again at any time.

The environment has a full, integrated security suite and uptime is guaranteed. Users can connect through the firewall from any Internet-enabled device. The system also supports all major operating systems. "Similar environments can also be cloned and applied around the world, enabling users to carry this capacity with them wherever they go," says Hatfield. "The REST-based API also allows users to easily integrate systems via the back-end to enable disparate environments to 'talk' to each other."

According to Hatfield, this is the direction that cloud computing is moving globally. "We are therefore extremely pleased to be able to offer such a comprehensive local offering of this nature. Many of our current and prospective clients have been waiting for a cloud-based service like this, as it lets them customise their virtual server environment to suit their unique business requirements. The utility billing also fits any budget, which finally makes enterprise-grade cloud architecture available to everybody," he concludes.

Visit www.cloud.is.co.za for more info or to register.

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Internet Solutions

Internet Solutions is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dimension Data. The company is southern Africa's most established and experienced Internet service provider. Since 1993, Internet Solutions has been providing innovative end-to-end connectivity solutions and related services across the African continent. Today, IS is a provider of Internet Protocol-based connectivity, communications, and cloud and carrier services in the African market and for African clients into the global market. IS provides services to large public and private sector organisations, medium-sized organisations, and through its value channel programme, to smaller organisations and consumers.

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