CHICAGO, Feb. 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- SingleHop, a global leader in highly automated hosting and infrastructure services, today announced the debut of its SingleHop Public Cloud based on VMware cloud infrastructure technology. Built to meet the most stringent demands of today's real-time enterprise, the SingleHop Public Cloud gives organizations of any size the reliability, user control, direct professional support, and the instant scalability they need from their cloud services provider.

The SingleHop Public Cloud leverages the rich capabilities of the VMware vCloud® Suite, enabling users to quickly shift processing workloads from internal to virtual resources as needed. Users are able to manage their cloud services through SingleHop's innovative LEAP Control Panel. Because of the advanced cloud server deployment technology in the VMware vCloud Suite, cloud servers can be added or subtracted in as little as 60 seconds to match demand in real-time.

Adding to the appeal of the SingleHop Public Cloud is its exceptional failover protection backed by its scalable SAN-based cloud storage system. Hourly, rather than monthly, usage billing ensures that organizations pay only for the exact resources allocated, while enjoying free 24/7/365 access to qualified, VMware-certified engineers for reliable high-level technical support and peace-of-mind.

"The promise and potential of cloud computing carries with it the need for reliability and responsiveness. The new SingleHop Public Cloud, based on VMware cloud infrastructure technology, gives users of all sizes exactly what they need," said Andy Pace, SingleHop Chief Operating Officer. "Our new offering combines VMware's renowned dependability and scalability with SingleHop's LEAP Control Panel for the ultimate in flexibility and ease-of-use. Add in our exceptional tech support and Customer Bill of Rights SLA, and it's easy to see why the SingleHop Public Cloud is the best enterprise-grade cloud resource in the industry."

The SingleHop Public Cloud is an exceptional choice by almost any standard. Features include:

• Mobile Accessibility. SingleHop's LEAP Control Panel can be accessed from anywhere via PC, iPhone, iPad or Android device. In addition to offering fingertip control of physical and virtual resources, notifications, alerts and updates are delivered automatically.
• AutoScaling. Create your own rules-based guidelines for automatically increasing or decreasing the RAM, number of processors, or storage you use in your SingleHop cloud-based resource.
• Hourly Billing. Development teams, testing, and other groups with variable resource needs benefit from hourly—compared to monthly—billing as they scale their use of cloud-based resources up and down to meet their to-the-moment needs. Hourly billing is available across all SingleHop Public Cloud resources, including its application-hosting product, Hosted Cloud Apps.
• SAN-based Storage with Automatic Failover. The SingleHop Public Cloud replaces local storage with a robust and fully redundant SAN-based cloud storage solution. This means that if the cloud server you are using for processing should ever fail, the system will automatically spin up a new instance which connects to the same storage allocation—saving you what could otherwise be hours of data transfer and resource reconfiguration. Failover happens fast, often without missing a ping.
• Load Balancing. SingleHop's VMware-based infrastructure provides automated load balancing between multi-node deployments. This means Web servers or application servers are easily configured to balance traffic between multiple cloud servers for optimal performance.
• Faster Deployment. Virtual resources can be deployed more than 5 times faster than before with our new Public Cloud offering. Deployment times for cloud servers are in the 60-second range.
• Template and Capture Functionality. VMware technology allows users to create a template of any server or group of servers to revert or replicate as needed. The capability is especially useful for routine configuration of multiple virtual machines.
• Supports both Windows and Linux operating systems.

"One of the primary goals for our new VMware-based Public Cloud offering was to blend our award-winning service with an enterprise-class cloud product," said Marc Bollinger, SingleHop Development Manager. "In fact, our customer-centric focus leads everything we do. Not only do we offer the industry's most comprehensive SLA on all our products, but our support structure ensures that customers talk to a certified SingleHop technician, not a call center representative."

To learn more about the SingleHop Public Cloud, powered by VMware, log on to http://www.singlehop.com/cloud-hosting/public-cloud.php.

About SingleHop
SingleHop is a cloud hosting company that offers highly scalable, on-demand infrastructure services to both end-users and resellers. With clients in 114 countries, three strategically located data centers (two in the Chicago-area, one in Phoenix, Arizona) and over 12,000 servers online, SingleHop delivers state of the art resources and services with industry-leading deployment time and customer support. SingleHop was established in 2006 and makes its home in Chicago, IL. In 2011, the company was named #25 on the Inc. 500 list for the fastest growing companies in America.

SOURCE SingleHop