Can you briefly tell us a little bit about how Virtela got started?

Virtela is the largest independent managed services company. We provide managed network and security services to more than 1,000 customers around the world, leveraging an innovative multi-carrier network architecture that enables us to deliver services in more than 190 countries.

The company was started 10 years ago by some of the leading architects of the world’s major IP backbones. They had the foresight to develop an intelligent routing/switching overlay architecture that integrates the world’s best-of-breed carrier networks for our underlying multi-carrier infrastructure while delivering consistent high quality of service throughout. This architecture gives Virtela’s customers the freedom to use any mix of underlying transport networks or network carriers to address their unique needs around the world, even on a location-by-location basis. This disruptive model has proven highly successful – and we’ve now extended this implementation to the cloud.

What market segments are you targeting?

Virtela serves companies that have a distributed workforce. Virtela serves some of the world’s most competitive, midsize- to-Fortune 100 multinational companies.

Virtela just announced Virtela Enterprise Services Cloud (ESC). Can you tell us a little about this new program?

Virtela ESC is a new cloud-based architecture. It was built from the ground up to deliver enterprise networking, security and mobility services to enable communications supporting delay-sensitive applications:

• Between private and public clouds
• Between enterprise users anywhere in the world using any device and private/public clouds or private data centers that host enterprise applications
• Among enterprise users in remote locations, branch office or in mobile environments

To deliver these services, we had to create a wholly different cloud architecture:

• Open Architecture. We deliver any service to any location or device using any network. Virtela ESC seamlessly integrates with any public or private cloud such as storage, computing and SaaS. Virtela ESC enables any-to-any enterprise communications regardless of the underlying transport network while ensuring end-to-end service performance.
• Locally Distributed. We have deployed Local Cloud Centers (LCCs) worldwide, close to the end users. Our locally distributed model makes applications run faster immediately at the content source and we mitigate security threats close to the source of attack, as examples.
• Optimized for virtual devices. Hosting models that use rack-and-stack deployments are expensive, complex and not scalable to support many services or many customers. In our case, we’re using virtualization technologies to deliver services from the cloud by decoupling hardware from the services and service delivery.

What are the benefits?

Virtela ESC eliminates the need for multi-device implementations at corporate locations. It’s not uncommon for companies to have to buy a single device per service per location. So if a company has security and networking needs such as URL filtering, firewall, IP telephony, LAN switching, application acceleration, etc., the traditional device-based solution requires many devices per location. It’s complex, expensive, slow to deploy and hard to manage.

With Virtela ESC, we’re offering all these services from the cloud:

• We offer a breakthrough low monthly cost per location. A typical 20-site configuration can achieve 80% cost savings.
• We can turn up services instantly, within minutes instead of months.
• We deliver service guarantees based on customer experience.

How is Virtela using virtualization to create this new architecture?

We have optimized Virtela ESC for virtual devices. This means that we have decoupled services and service delivery from hardware. In addition to that, we ensured that our virtualization approach is deployed close to the end users and works on top of any underlying network or combination of service provider networks around the world.

What types of services are being offered based on ESC?

Virtela ESC supports a wide range of enterprise networking, security and mobility services. All services can be activated instantly, offer low per-site monthly charge and are backed by unprecedented service guarantees. Some examples of these cloud-based services are as follows:

• Application Acceleration Service – This flagship service under Virtela ESC makes applications run 5-25X faster for only $5 a day per branch office, backed by a 250% guarantee. Some of the applications we accelerate include email, ERP/CRM applications, file sharing, web-based collaboration and backup/storage. We are so confident that we can deliver faster application response time that if end users do not experience faster response time, they don’t pay. In fact, we pay them 250% of the service charge.
• Real-time Distributed Security Services - Real-time distributed security services allow enterprises to mitigate security threats at the point of origin and contain the potential damage from within the cloud.
• Managed Smartphone Services - Managed smartphone services offer a range of capabilities available from the cloud, all aimed at improving an enterprise’s control and monitoring of its smartphone devices and wireless usage.

How is ESC positioned in relation to other cloud uses?

Virtela ESC is the only cloud optimized for enterprise networking, security and mobility. It enables communications between end users, end-users with clouds (e.g., storage, computing, Software as a Service, process platforms, application development platforms, etc.), and clouds with other clouds.

In your opinion, what things are holding cloud computing back from wider adoption? What issue is top-most in your mind and why?

From an enterprise communications cloud perspective, we believe that enterprises want a cloud that does not tie them to a specific carrier’s services; can effectively support two-way, delay-sensitive applications, and truly decouples services from hardware to offer consumable services with low monthly charges and meaningful service guarantees. Based on our discussions with many enterprises, we anticipate wider adoption of cloud-based enterprise networking, security and mobility services with Virtela ESC.

For the technologist who is reading this, who appreciated “the deep dive”, what is it that you can tell us that he/she would really appreciate about ESC?

First, Virtela ESC’s position as the cloud that enables seamless communications between end users, end users with clouds, and clouds with other clouds; and second, Virtela’s inherent network-, technology- and carrier-agnostic business model, which allows the company to truly deliver benefits to all users rather than just a select few. Virtela has cracked the code, from the company’s inception, for how to ensure consistent performance over an underlying multi-carrier transport network.

So where does Virtela go from here?

Virtela will continue to develop and launch cloud-based services that offer breakthrough low monthly charges, instant service activation, and service guarantees based on measurements most important and most relevant to end users.

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Related Links: Virtela.net, Virtela Launches World’s First Global Enterprise Services Cloud (ESC) for Networking, Security and Mobility, Virtela Lauchnes World’s First Cloud-Based Application Acceleration Service and Application Performance Guarantee

Liza Adams – Vice President of Marketing at Virtela

As Vice President of Marketing at Virtela, Liza is responsible for all aspects of Virtela’s global marketing organization. Prior to Virtela, Liza was the Vice President of Marketing for Level 3 Communications’ Business Markets Group, responsible for marketing data, voice and converged enterprise services. She also held various strategy, marketing and product management lead positions at WilTel, the service provider that launched the world’s first Layer 2 networking services for enterprises. Early in her career at WilTel, as an Applications Engineer, Liza designed some of the largest and most complex enterprise data networks in the world.

She was also Vice President at TeleChoice, Inc., an industry analyst and marketing and strategy consulting firm. She worked with technology vendors and service providers to market enabling technology products and networking services, respectively. Liza is a co-author of Frame Relay Internetworking and a contributor to ATM for Dummies.

Liza has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Missouri – Rolla.