Wireless carrier AT&T announced today its new AT&T Synaptic Compute as a Service, which comes as a global cloud-based service aimed at offering companies simple “on-demand access to scalable computing capacity.” According to the company, the new service is based on technology from VMware and Sun Microsystems, providing a self-service approach for the use of IT solutions over its network cloud.

“AT&T is enabling customers to extend their internal IT environments to the cloud by using their unique strengths in global network capabilities to offer cloud services that are compatible with customers' private VMware environments,” said Paul Maritz, president and chief executive officer, VMware. “We are excited to contribute our technology to enable this and to work with AT&T in our VMware vCloud initiative that is focused on integrating and connecting private and public clouds, using the VMware vSphere virtualization platform and the VMware vCloud API.”

According to the wireless carrier, it is also working closely with Sun for the use of the Sun Cloud Open Cloud Platform and Sun Cloud APIs, as well as cloud reference architecture and design expertise for the building of an environment that would offer a simple way for developers to come up with value-added services.

Dave Douglas, senior vice president, Cloud Computing, Sun Microsystems stated: “AT&T's network and operational excellence coupled with Sun's Open Cloud Platform and Sun Cloud APIs delivers a revolutionary cloud offering. We're excited to be working with AT&T to bring an enterprise-class, highly scalable offering that delivers choice and flexibility to market.” He also added that Sun planned on helping its customers and partners deliver cloud solutions that would prove open and interoperable, while also being cost effective.

AT&T also revealed that it aimed at introducing the new service during the fourth quarter of this year. When the new AT&T Synaptic Compute as a Service becomes available in the United States, it will enable customers to access it from anywhere through connecting to the web. Moreover, the company announced that it prepared for adding the service to a series of global IDCs so as to be able to meet customer demand internationally.

Roman Pacewicz, senior vice president of Strategy and Application Services, AT&T Business Solutions, commented on the new announcement: “As companies increasingly move to cloud-based environments, AT&T Synaptic Compute as a Service provides a much-needed choice for IT executives who worry about over-building or under-investing in the capacity needed to handle their users' traffic demands.”