Gen-i unveils cloud services, strategy

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Partnerships with Amazon and Microsoft feature in mix of old and new components

By Rob O'Neill | Auckland | Thursday, 3 December, 2009

Gen-i is launching a portfolio of cloud computing offerings for Australia and New Zealand, aiming to integrate these with the existing ICT infrastructure of customers.

The offerings feature partnerships with both cloud pioneer Amazon and with Microsoft for its Azure platform as well as a rebundling and repackaging of existing services and new additions.

Gen-i's strategy manager, technology, Neil Osmond, says the entirely new components include virtual storage and virtual hosting, which will be available early next year. Also new are core components of Gen-i's Extended Management Service, he says.

One component, Safecom, already has 130 customers and 20,000 users, he says. Hosted Exchange and IP PABX services have also been provided for a while.

"It's designed as a portfolio that will evolve," he says.

Security and virtual desktop services in particular are expected to be extended over time.

Gen-i says it will provide pre-integrated solutions built from the global public cloud, local private cloud and on-site hybrid solutions. The complexity of that integration and security is a large part of the offering's value, the company says in an announcement released this morning.

Quin says the company is investing in existing services as well as adding new capabilities to increase the functionality of the offerings. It’s how this technology is enabled, managed and utilised that adds real business value, he says.

"We predict that around 25 percent of new ICT services will be delivered via the cloud in the future, with the remaining 75 percent continuing to be deployed either in-house or outsourced to providers, such as Gen-i," he says.

Gen-i says its cloud computing strategy delivers and integrates private, public and hybrid cloud services. These include:

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Safecom (including Healthzone); secure mail filtering; secure web browsing; secure VPN; Gen-i Mobile RAS; enterprise management; virtual hosting and storage, backup as a service; Gen-i enterprise management service (GEMS); plus cloud suitability review and development process consultancy.

Platform as a Service (PaaS): including Amazon AWS deployment consultancy; and Microsoft Azure development.

Software as a Service (SaaS): including hosted Exchange Server 2007 and hosted Sharepoint services; hosted voice solutions, integrating mobile, fixed line and IP networks; hosted PBX/IP Workspace (Hybrid), hosted IP Workplace and Mobile Workplace, Telecom Business Hub; and social networking usage and leverage.

Gen-i says it is also investing in a range of solutions over the coming 12 to 18 months and will launch Enhanced Gen-i WAN Services (GWS) and Gen-i Enterprise Management solutions in the New Year, with Foundation GWS Services to follow mid-year.