Agility, Productivity (NAPSA)—Small and medium businesses across the U.S. are seeking ways to be more agile, productive and cost effective through the innovative use of IT. However, the cost of procurement, the complexity of management and the lack of trained staff often hold them back. Enter cloud computing. Cloud computing is a new way to purchase and consume IT, enabling companies to adjust capacity to meet rapidly changing business requirements and pay only for the resources used. There are several solutions available today that are designed specifically for the small and medium-size business market. In general, these solutions offer an affordable, secure and easy-to-use IT platform to help boost bandwidth, add servers and turn up additional storage capacity with only an Internet connection. According to IDC, an industry analyst firm, cloud adoption among small and medium-size businesses worldwide is poised for significant growth. By 2014 the firm predicts the overall market for public IT cloud services will grow to $55.5 billion—from $16.5 billion in 2009. Major uses of cloud computing include application support and development, servers, storage and network software. Well suited to companies with a few to a few hundred employees, cloud computing appeals to orga- nizations with limited in-house IT resources and those that don’t want to own their IT infrastructure. The platform delivers flexible, high-performance, pay-asyou-go, on-demand computing and is well suited to businesses such as retailers and professional services firms, as well as independent departments within larger 7_GE = C.mii Small and medium-size businesses can tap cloud technology to be more agile, productive and cost effective to better compete in the global economy. organizations. It also appeals to online businesses and application developers who want to code, test and stage in a reliable and scalable cloud environment. Many companies offer cloudcomputing solutions, so it’s advisable to compare features to ensure they meet the needs of your business. For example, one leading solution is Verizon CaaS SMB. This service offers businesses a simple-to-use, Web-based console to quickly purchase and scale computing capacity with no minimum spending commitment—all that’s needed to get started is a credit card. In addition, Verizon's solution, based on virtualization technology, offers features made for business, such as fully integrated firewalls andthe ability to connect to virtual private networks with an option to add more security features. Fully redundant and highly scalable, Ve- rizon CaaS SMB providesreliable access to your data and applications. The service also comes with a 100 percent availability guarantee. Learn More For more information, visit www.verizonbusiness.com/medium/ caassmb.
