14 DAY TRIAL // Sun has announced the launch of its new array of professional services called Sun Cloud Strategic Planning Service, aimed at businesses of all sizes wanting to deploy web-based solutions or 'cloud computing'. Sun plans to offer support and consultancy, helping companies assess how ready they are for cloud computing or even if this is a smart move for them.
“Cloud Computing has been billed by the industry as the answer to today's IT woes, without much clarity on how to get there,” said Amy O'Connor, vice president, Services Marketing at Sun. “At Sun, we are applying our industry specific consulting and technology expertise to offer secure, practical guidance to companies looking to drive new levels of efficiency by leveraging this emerging computing model.”
Sun plans to offer the services through its consulting arm Sun Professional Services. Businesses using the services will be offered advice and recommendations in what Sun believes are four key areas. They will evaluate if the nature of their business makes them suited for cloud computing and how it would help them if they are. The company's current organization and culture will also be assessed. Finally they will be evaluated from a technology and also IT environment.
Sun is a strong backer of cloud computing, being a firm with great interest in the area, and is preparing to launch Sun Cloud as a public compute and storage infrastructure service this summer. "It's an amazing time for cloud computing. We're seeing interest in the cloud inside the U.S. government. With just a credit card, you can bring up your data center in the cloud in a couple of minutes," Lew Tucker, CTO of Sun Cloud, said in a CommunityOne address. "No more filling out a form in triplicate and walking it down the hall (to get a new server)," he added.