Savvis Maximizes Opportunities in the Cloud Computing Market

In the last few years, the cloud computing market has matured from largely pie-in-the-sky aspirations to concrete services that bring real results to clients. Oracle partner Savvis is at the forefront of this continuing cloud computing evolution. The company’s Savvis Symphony suite of cloud computing solutions provides clients with true Oracle-based enterprise-grade cloud environments. Its successful cloud strategy also offers opportunities for other Oracle partners to work cooperatively with Savvis to grow in the lucrative cloud arena.

Savvis has more than 2,500 customers across all industries achieving IT cost savings and improved business agility with customized services for hosted IT and cloud computing solutions, as well as colocation, network, and security services. The company definitely sees cloud computing as an expanding market, but customers with enterprise-class, mission-critical systems still have some trepidation.

“Many companies like the idea of cloud computing, but they have concerns about using the technology to manage enterprise-level applications,” says Brent Juelich, senior director of managed services at Savvis.

Initially, the main focus in cloud computing was on moving development, testing, and lightweight applications to public and private cloud environments because the applications generally do not directly impact the bottom line. However, now that the market is more mature, companies are considering enterprise-grade cloud environments. The challenge is to find cloud solutions that can deliver the security, reliability, flexibility, and scalability at an attractive price point to support mission-critical applications.

“There’s been a strong push with the economy to drive costs out of IT. Companies are looking to the cloud to save money on infrastructure costs,” says Jim Sherburne, director of managed product services at Savvis. “In order to do that, you have to target your higher-end, production-grade applications and services.”

A 2010 study conducted by IDG Research Services and CIO Custom Solutions Group and commissioned by Savvis reveals that 75 percent of companies surveyed are either currently using or plan to implement enterprise-grade cloud computing solutions within the next five years. However, 60 percent still consider it extremely challenging to find the right cloud computing solution, and 62 percent cite security as the critical factor when evaluating cloud solutions.

“We have many large clients with complex, difficult environments. What we’re finding is that when it comes to cloud computing, they want hybrid solutions,” says Juelich. Rather than moving all IT operations to a cloud environment, companies are likely to retain management of systems in-house, while choosing to move some to a private cloud environment. “Interoperability is very important, and security is brought up in every conversation we have with clients about cloud,” Juelich adds.

Fortunately, the Savvis Symphony suite of cloud solutions delivers flexible options to meet the needs of Savvis’ Oracle clients. The Symphony solutions leverage a variety of Oracle technologies, including Oracle Database 10g or 11g, Oracle WebLogic Server, MySQL, and Oracle VM. Savvis Symphony Dedicated delivers a fully managed, customizable, private cloud infrastructure, while Savvis Symphony Open offers a multitenant public cloud environment. Savvis Symphony Virtual Private Data Center (VPDC) is an enterprise-class virtual private data center solution with multitiered security, service, and network profiles. The company’s newest offering, introduced in June 2011, is Symphony Database Oracle. It is a fully managed, high-quality, high-end enterprise environment in the cloud.

“The solution is focused on enterprise workloads, making sure customers can scale quickly horizontally and vertically,” Juelich says. “It’s very appealing to all types of businesses, but specifically software-as-a-service–based businesses (SaaS)—where they live and die based on software sales.”

SaaS is a critical focus for Savvis. The company currently has more than 400 SaaS clients, representing a growth area of its business. In addition, Savvis is actively working with other Oracle partners to develop SaaS-enabled solutions for Oracle applications, including Oracle’s Siebel CRM and Oracle Hyperion. “SaaS is definitely a growth market for us,” says Juelich. “We’re always looking for partners to expand our offering.”

Because Savvis has worked with virtualization for many years, it is also harnessing its experience to partner with Oracle and is internally testing Oracle VM 3.0. It is part of Savvis’ efforts to push complete Oracle stacks to its client base when they want it. In addition, Savvis will have a booth at Oracle OpenWorld 2011.

“We’ve seen Oracle bring to market some really exciting things, and it’s been important to collaborate together,” Juelich says. “We’re focused on finding creative ways to help solve our client problems by using the right Oracle technology.”