It was never going to be easy for a telecommunications company like Verizon to provide cloud access. An InfoWorld article published at the time of Verizon’s Terremark acquisition observed:
“… many big telecom companies moving to the cloud will find there is more to cloud computing than providing managed services that are just renamed ‘cloud services.’ The level of sophistication in true cloud services will rise quickly in the next year or so, and those just pushing infrastructure connected to big networks will find they are a commodity.”
Two years later, Verizon has rebuilt its cloud offering. The changes come in response to customer demands for more consistent service as the complexity and size of their data transmission and storage requirements increases and are driving more companies, particularly in healthcare, to the cloud.
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The changes include two main components: Verizon Cloud Compute and Verizon Cloud Storage. Verizon Cloud Compute is the infrastructure-as-a-service platform, according to a company statement. Users can determine and set virtual machine and network performance. The changes are intended to make performance more predictable and consistent. Users can also configure storage performance and attach storage to multiple virtual machines, the statement said.
In its previous version, users had to pre-set configurations based on size — small, medium, large — and performance, with little flexibility regarding virtual machine, network performance and storage configuration.
Until now, user experience has been less than stellar as Verizon has navigated the learning curve of running a cloud service. In a phone interview with MedCty News, Kevin Clarke, director cloud platform engineering for Verizon, said: “What we have done is address inhibitors to cloud adoption: security, raw performance, identity management, deterministic performance, repeatable performance.”
Clarke added that the upgrade to its cloud infrastructure-as-a-service includes a HIPAA compliant data center in response to updates to HIPAA Omnibus final rule implemented last month. More hospitals are expected to shift to cloud computing to meet the data security demanded of securely sending and storing protected health information contained in electronic health records.
Public beta for Verizon Cloud will launch in the fourth quarter of this year. Companies interested in taking part can sign up on its cloud computing website.
