Terremark Launches Utility Computing Service For Enterprises

Seems like everybody wants to get into cloud computing these days. Add another to the list: managed hosting provider Terremark.

Last week, Terremark launched an offering dubbed Enterprise Cloud, based on the Infinistructure virtualized utility platform that forms the hardware layer of much of the company's managed hosting. Infinistructure's already being sold as a stand-alone but fully managed product, whereas Enterprise Cloud gives customers much deeper control over the resources they need and the applications they want to run.

Using a console, customers will be able to log in to provision servers from a resource pool, scale their purchases as needed, and Terremark promises adding new applications will be relatively simple. With purchase, Terremark intends to provide service level agreements, support and service for the underlying hardware and software. Enterprise Cloud includes Windows Server, Linux and Solaris support. Additional services like application monitoring and patch management for applications will cost extra, since Enterprise Cloud isn't fully managed.

Enterprise Cloud will offer computing power by the Gbyte or RAM and storage and the GHz of processing power billed as a lump sum at the beginning of a multi-month contract. That's unlike Amazon Web Services, which sells utility storage and compute cycles by Gbytes of storage and traffic as well as the number of requests.

Also unlike Amazon Web Services, Enterprise Cloud will set aside a dedicated bank of servers rather than relying on a multi-tenant architecture.

"The concept might be the cloud, but sometimes enterprises might say, hey, I want my cloud in your west coast data center," Terremark chief marketing officer Simon West said in an interview.

West said he believes hosting companies like Terremark are actually better suited than traditional application companies to take on utility computing or compute cycles as a service.

"Customers have complex or custom applications, and they're going to be expecting a certain amount of control and choice about the networks to which they connect and the geography," he said. "Application companies are getting into it at a fairly prescribed level."