Cloud Computing on Ulitzer

iomart Hosting has launched two of the UK's first genuine true cloud computing hosting platforms.

The company, one of few UK data hosting companies to own its entire data centre infrastructure, has developed two platforms which will allow customers to make use of the 'cloud' - an on-demand, remote IT infrastructure that enables companies to access and manage scaleable computing resources without the need for capital investment. This allows cloud users increased efficiency, as well as lower costs.

iomart Hosting's five UK data centres enable it to offer two new Cloud Hosting service offerings.

- CloudXtra: allows access to iomart Hosting's cloud infrastructure on demand, where customers pay only for what they use, when they use it. This option is ideal for test, development and short-term or seasonal high-capacity requirements.

- CloudSure: utilising iomart Hosting's UK data centre network, CloudSure offers a bespoke and full-customisable cloud service. It enables integration of networking, server, storage, and application infrastructure into a single, virtual cloud-based architecture

Angus MacSween, chief executive of iomart Hosting, said: "The benefits of cloud computing are hugely exciting but as yet are relatively untapped.

"We took a strategic decision to ensure we owned our data centre infrastructure and that strategy continues to prove its worth now with the advent of virtually-hosted cloud based data networks. With our two cloud hosting offerings, we are meeting the needs of two distinct markets. We are catering for both the company that needs to expand its current IT infrastructure on a short-term basis and also, for example, the company that requires high availability for disaster recovery purposes. Many cloud providers offer resilience within one single data centre, with our network we can offer the 'cloud holy grail' of multi site redundancy.

"We believe we're the first in the UK to offer genuine Cloud Services. The beauty of our infrastructure set up is that we can adapt and develop that service across our data centres to ensure that, regardless of where our customers are, they can benefit from our cloud network."

He added: "Our cloud hosting solutions are all backed by a genuine 100% business uptime guarantee, are fully supported by our technical teams 24/7, and we have invested heavily in engineering our network to avoid any single point of failure. That's what we offer with our cloud hosting solutions - peace of mind."