EarthLink has been busy building a name for itself as a cloud and managed service provider (MSP) over the past year. The company launched a private cloud hosting service in October and last week unveiled its FlexCloud hosting service for unified cloud computing management.
Now the company has been named a Cisco-certified Cloud and Managed Services (CMSP) Advanced Partner, further cementing its place within the cloud landscape. The designation signifies EarthLink is backed by Cisco throughout its portfolio of cloud services, comprised of FlexCloud and Private Cloud Hosting as well as Cloud Hosting and Cloud Disaster Recovery.
"EarthLink is very proud of our IT Services team that worked through months of detailed certification and process requirements to earn Cisco's CMSP Advanced Partner certification," said Thomas Hobika, senior vice president of cloud IT services at EarthLink. "We will utilize our CMSP certification as a tremendous opportunity to expand revenue, build customer loyalty and differentiate EarthLink's sales force as we team with Cisco to sell our unique cloud services."
Frost & Sullivan released a report earlier in the year discussing how ISPs are transforming their service s as they move toward the cloud model. And the company has positioned EarthLink as a mover and a shaker in the realm of managed services. According to the report, since 2010 EarthLInk has been in the process of transforming from a residential ISP to a top MSP in the business communications and IT services space.
“EarthLink has come a long way,” said Roopa Honnachari, program manager, business communication services, Stratecast and Frost & Sullivan. “The company's efforts have been focused on growing its growth retail products that include Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) Virtual Private Network (VPN), Hosted VoIP, and IT services. This direction is consistent with Frost & Sullivan research that indicates that a hybrid model appeals to customers that are looking to leverage the cost benefits of the shared cloud model, without fully giving up control or security associated with other environments.”
The hybrid cloud model, consisting of a blend of public and private cloud services, is becoming increasingly popular as companies seek out ways to harness the cost savings and efficiency of the public cloud while enjoying the security, flexibility and control of the private cloud. And Gartner says nearly half of large enterprises will have hybrid cloud deployments by 2017, which bodes very well for EarthLink’s migration to the cloud model.
Edited by
Cassandra Tucker
