Virtela Launches World's First Global Enterprise Services Cloud (ESC) for Networking, Security and Mobility

Industry-Breakthrough Architecture Features 50 Local Cloud Centers Worldwide, Bringing Services to End-User's Doorstep

Key Enterprise Benefits:

  • Open Architecture Delivers Any Service, from Any Location, using Any Network
  • Eliminates "One Device, Per Service, Per Location" Model for 80% Cost Savings
  • Enables World's First Cloud-Based Application Acceleration Service and Application Performance Guarantee

DENVER, June 8, 2010 - Virtela, the world's largest independent managed network services company, announced today the world's first cloud architecture purpose-built for enterprise networking, security and mobility: Virtela Enterprise Services Cloud (ESC). Virtela ESC extends Virtela's disruptive multi-carrier network model to the cloud, up-ending conventional cloud models to deliver higher cost savings and faster service to enterprises worldwide.

Unlike other cloud computing approaches, Virtela ESC offers a breakthrough architecture that is open at every level, locally distributed around the world, and optimized for virtual devices. These innovations unlock exponential benefits for enterprises faced with supporting increasingly distributed workforces that need fast and secure access to applications from anywhere in the world, often with decreasing IT budgets and staff. Virtela ESC frees the enterprise from common cloud constraints: closed platforms that tie services to a single network provider, centralized models that are inefficient for delay-sensitive applications, and "rack and stack" approaches that remain complex, costly and cannot scale with enterprise demand.

"Virtela ESC is doing for enterprise networking, security and mobility what Amazon EC2 has done for storage and computing," said Michael Suby, director of Stratecast, a division of Frost & Sullivan. "At the same time, Virtela is offering enterprises for the first time a completely agnostic architecture that is interoperable across any public or private cloud, data center or hybrid environment, while delivering the consistently fast application response times that end users want and need."

Conventional cloud architectures are typically designed to support store-and-forward services, such as storage and computing. Virtela ESC was built from the ground up specifically to optimize real-time and delay-sensitive applications that enterprises rely on and which require a different approach on three key fronts:

Open Architecture. Virtela ESC is independent of the underlying network, carrier and technology. As a result, it delivers the best service to any location, using any network anywhere in the world. This infrastructure independence gives customers the freedom to choose the best mix of carriers and technologies, for example, to optimize access to any enterprise application, public/private cloud service or data center resource. Virtela ESC is the only all-inclusive cloud architecture available today.

Locally Distributed. Virtela ESC effectively brings services to the end user's doorstep via its highly distributed network of 50 Local Cloud Centers (LCCs) around the world. By extending the cloud closer to the end user, Virtela accelerates applications immediately, near the content source, and instantly mitigates security threats near the origin of attack. This is in stark contrast to the centralized hosting model of conventional clouds, which may take end user traffic halfway around the world before reaching desired applications. Virtela ESC offers the deepest geographic reach of any cloud platform available today.

Optimized for Virtual Devices. Virtela ESC changes the "One Device, Per Service, Per Location" status quo model. Virtela has decoupled services from hardware, virtualizing multiple services in its Local Cloud Centers to eliminate the complexity and expense of deploying multiple branch office devices. This results in an order of magnitude cost savings and ease of use.

Virtela ESC services are available at zero upfront cost and have proven to deliver an 80% reduction in total cost of ownership. For example, an enterprise network and security deployment for 20 branch offices could cost $600,000 upfront for hardware devices, plus the same amount in maintenance and IT staff costs, for a total of $1.2 million in the first year. The same deployment with Virtela ESC would require no upfront cost and a total of $120,000 in service fees: 10 times less expensive.

Virtela ESC services scale from as few as two branch offices to thousands of branch offices for a single enterprise. Services can be activated within minutes and feature a consumable pay-as-you-go pricing model. Virtela ESC is the only virtualized cloud architecture for networking available today.

"With an astounding total of 10 million branch offices around the world, enterprises are more distributed than ever and need to cost-effectively extend centralized cloud benefits to the branch office while maintaining control and functionality," said Vab Goel, CEO of Virtela. "Virtela ESC meets that need with a distributed architecture that gives enterprises an all-access pass to whatever resource they need, wherever they need it, instantly from the cloud at dramatically lower costs."

New Services Enabled by Virtela ESC

Virtela ESC serves as the foundation for a multitude of industry-first services in enterprise networking, security and mobility. In a separate announcement today, Virtela launched the flagship service powered by Virtela ESC: the world's first cloud-based application acceleration service. Available now, Virtela's Cloud-Based Application Acceleration Service speeds applications five to 25 times faster for just $5 a day per branch office.

Virtela's new application acceleration service is backed by the industry's first application response time experience guarantee. If a customer's applications do not run faster, they do not pay - in fact, Virtela pays them 250% of the service charge. This unprecedented Service Level Agreement (SLA) also extends to Virtela's existing managed application acceleration services, including its appliance-based offering, and hybrid cloud/appliance -based solutions continue to be available to meet customers' specific requirements per location.

Virtela ESC also enables equally disruptive new security services, such as real-time distributed security, and mobility services, such as managed smartphone services, which will be formally announced at a later date and feature industry-breakthrough service pricing, activation and guarantees.

To learn more about Virtela ESC, please see these online resources:

Virtela offers an extensive suite of managed network, security, infrastructure management, and application acceleration services, which leverage a unique model that aggregates and integrates the best local, regional and global networks to offer unparalleled geographic reach. By adding a unique overlay of intelligence that performs optimal routing and automatic failover for customer network traffic, Virtela's multi-carrier Global Service FabricSM and Enterprise Services CloudSM give enterprises an inherently higher performing, more resilient and cost effective alternative to traditional carrier networks. Virtela is the single point of contact for expert design, implementation and 24x7 proactive monitoring and management worldwide.

About Virtela

Virtela Technology Services Incorporated, the world's largest independent managed network services company, offers award-winning services, including MPLS and IP-based Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), Security, Infrastructure Management, and Application Acceleration, to enterprise customers around the world. Offering services in 190 countries, Virtela integrates and manages best-of-breed service providers through partnerships with 500+ carriers, to address the unique needs of its customers.

Virtela is headquartered in Denver, Colorado, with Global Network Operations Centers in Denver, Mumbai, India and Manila, Philippines. For more information, please call +1 (720) 475-4000 or visit www.virtela.net.

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Media Contacts:

Jane Morrissey
Virtela
+1-720-475-4012
jmorrissey@virtela.net

Catharine Morgan
Greenough Communications
+1.617.275.6552
cmorgan@greenoughcom.com