Verizon [VZ] reported a major increase in customer use of its cloud computing services in the past 18 months, according to a company report released on Thursday.
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| Locations of Verizon Terremark’s global data centers, which can host servers for cloud computing. Photo: Verizon Terremark. |
The company saw a 90 percent increase is customers using cloud for storage purposes and a 100 percent increase in cloud-based memory. The company noted a 35 percent increase in deployment of virtual machines (VMs), which enable cloud computing.
Calling cloud computing the way of the future, Norm Laudermilch, chief operating officer for Verizon Terremark Public Sector, said companies and organizations are increasingly using cloud computing for critical internal applications, not just as a support tool.
“Before they were trying it out, now they’re rolling it out to tens of thousands of users, even millions in one of our clients,” he said.
Cloud computing means that a third-party company, like Verizon, manages the servers for the client. The client can access the servers through the Internet. The amount of usage can be scaled on demand without the client having to rework its IT infrastructure. Cloud computing provides greater flexibility and access to information, while reducing the IT burden on individual companies or agencies.
Laudermilch said Verizon works with hundreds of large public sector clients who use cloud computing in their daily operations. The company recently won $1 billion of a $10 billion total cloud contract with the Department of the Interior–one of Verizon’s largest federal cloud contracts.
Laudermilch declined to name Verizon’s clients in the defense community, but he noted that two agencies had moved their entire IT infrastructure to the cloud.
Giving an example of Verizon’s success in the cloud, he said a DoD agency estimated that it saved 70 percent on IT costs by moving to the cloud. The agency was running its own data center but decided to adopt the cloud two years ago. In times of extreme usage, the agency’s applications needed to grow by 200-300 percent. The agency found it could not achieve this flexibility outside of the cloud.
Cloud computing also allows for rapid deployment of necessary data in theater for the military as well as civilian aid organizations, he said.
As the defense community continues to embrace the cloud, Laudermilch said Verizon is prioritizing security.
“We start by building the equivalent of military bases for critical IT infrastructures,” he said. “Inside these ‘military bases’ are data centers that contain our cloud infrastructure.”
Laudermilch said Verizon is DoD Information Assurance Certification and Accreditation Process (DIACAP) certified.