SHI International Corp. has created a new online portal to bring together customers and help them manage a variety of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solutions from cloud service providers. The company unveiled its new SHI Cloud Marketplace to create a single procurement and management infrastructure for its customers.
The Marketplace enables customers to consolidate their cloud computing subscription models by combining services from individual providers with hardware and software offerings from SHI. The portal is designed to help customers save money through side-by-side cost and feature comparisons. Customers may easily select, deploy and even redeploy offerings based on their fluctuating business requirements. The Marketplace also handles product and service registration and helps clients throughout their deployments.
SHI specializes in custom IT solutions including software and hardware procurement, deployment planning, data center optimization and cloud computing. The company’s Cloud Marketplace differentiates itself from competitors by providing customers access to volume licensing experts to counsel clients on the best options and also ensure compliance with existing volume licensing programs. More and more service providers are launching cloud portals to offer unified access to a variety of IaaS and SaaS solutions. One of the most prominent recent launches was Oracle’s Cloud Marketplace, a competitor to the Salesforce.com AppExchange. Oracle launched the portal in tandem with 10 cloud services designed to go head to head with Salesforce and AWS.
The SHI Marketplace offers solutions from AWS, Rackspace, Microsoft, VMware, HP Cloud and SHI Cloud. The company has plans to expand its number of cloud partners and offer customers additional solutions to meet performance and functionality expectations. "Many of our customers expect cloud computing to cut costs and provide agility, but finding the best option can be a time-consuming and expensive process," said Thai Lee, president and CEO of SHI International Corp. “Many cloud platforms provide only half the equation. They either detail the cloud products available but don't allow users to complete a purchase, or they provide a select set of subscription-based services without comparisons to other vendors.” “Adding the Cloud Marketplace to SHI's traditional IT offerings enables customers to track all of their software, hardware, and cloud-based infrastructure through a single, trusted partner to help monitor overall spend, reduce redundant purchases, and mitigate the risk of non-compliance," he added.
Edited by
Cassandra Tucker
