Doyenz Announces ShadowCloud Managed Services Platform

Doyenz brings managed services to the cloud with the ShadowCloud platform.

Virtualization and managed service specialist Doyenz announced Version 3.0 of its managed service platform, the Doyenz ShadowCloud, a cloud-based service that leverages virtualization and automation and is aimed at small to medium-size businesses. By replicating a copy of their clients' production infrastructure in the cloud, Doyenz argues the ShadowCloud enables IT service providers to leverage virtualization and automation and deliver high-level capability at a price midmarket firms can afford.

The Doyenz Active Disaster Recovery and Failover in the Cloud service provides a production-ready image that can be run on-demand in the cloud in case of a failure. IT service providers can also use the latest copy of the production image at any time to test, patch, upgrade or migrate systems in the company's Production-Ready Virtual Lab. The Doyenz platform now supports both physical and virtual IT environments, including support for VMware vSphere.

Dan Kusnetzky, vice president of research operations with The 451 Group, said Doyenz brings an interesting approach to aggregating enterprise-level capabilities and delivering them as an infrastructure-as-a-service offering targeting SMBs that would otherwise find it difficult to operate their IT infrastructure at the same level as much large organizations.

"Their business model combined with a hybrid cloud technology platform enables the SMB to manage their IT in the cloud while still being in control of their own critical onsite operations," he said. "This approach is likely to be seen as safe, manageable and affordable enough for organizations seeking to use cloud computing as a way to lower costs."

Joe Towner, president and CEO of Downtown Tech, a provider of SMB technology services, said ShadowCloud allows him to offer needed services to his midmarket customers. "The Doyenz service is affordable, simple and easy to install, and doesn't require any additional hardware or software," he said. "Failovers can happen quicker than I can drive to my hosting facility and ensures I can keep my clients up and running all the time. I expect a positive ROI in a single failover, and, in the meantime, add a profitable, high-margin service to my business."

Earlier in the year, Doyenz released Automated Virtual IT, a managed service for IT consultants that leverages virtualization and cloud services to automate the delivery and management of IT infrastructure. Designed to improve the quality and efficiency of SMB IT, Doyenz's SAAS platform can be used to automatically configure and manage servers and desktops as virtual appliances. The company calls Automated Virtual IT a "hybrid solution" that can be used to deploy virtual appliances either on-premises or in the cloud, allowing seamless migration from one to the other.