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Mitel is unveiling an offering that will enable businesses to deploy a virtualized unified communications service in a private or hybrid cloud setting that is hosted by Mitels service provider division, Mitel NetSolutions.
Mitels AnyWare IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) will let IT departments host Mitels virtualized unified communications and collaboration (UCC) software in a virtual private data center that offers a secure setting but doesnt force the customer to use up its own limited data center space or resources, or have to pay capital or operating expenses for equipment or power.
The cornerstone of the AnyWare IaaS offering is Mitels Freedom Architecture, a software-based UC solution introduced in 2010 that offers an array of communications options via the cloud to businesses that want an integrated UC solution that includes voice and video. Also two years ago, Mitel introduced AnyWare, a public cloud-based UC service.
However, AnyWare IaaS now gives businesses the option of deploying Mitels UC solution in a private cloud environment that doesnt sap their own resources.
A lot of enterprises are interested in the cloud, but are not ready for it or a public cloud, or dont want to use a public cloud yet, Jon Brinton, president of Mitel NetSolutions, told eWEEK in an interview.
With AnyWare IaaS, businesses now have a VMware-ready private cloud solution that is hosted by Mitel NetSolutions, Brinton said.
Mitel officials demonstrated the cloud unified communications (UC) solution at the Interop 2012 show in Las Vegas this week.
UC vendors big and small are aggressively pursuing strategies for getting their solutions into public, private and hybrid clouds. For example, in late March, Avaya officials unveiled their Avaya Collaborative Cloud Framework, an initiative to let enterprises, service providers and others build and use Avaya-based collaboration solutions in public, private and hybrid clouds.
For Mitel, AnyWare IaaS is a way to enable businesses to deploy virtualized voice, UC and collaboration solutions in a cloud-based way that lets them streamline operations and reduce infrastructure costs. By letting Mitel NetSolutions host the virtualized environment, IT departments can focus on their core competencies rather than having to worry about their UC deployments and quality of service requirements, Brinton said.
In addition, companies can run AnyWare IaaS in a hybrid cloud fashion, with an on-premises deployment at the main office and UC capabilities at remote offices in a private cloud hosted by Mitel NetSolutions, with both the on-premises and private cloud solutions working together, he said.
The SAS70-certified solution is available to businesses immediately through Mitel resellers, which will sell subscriptions to AnyWare IaaS along with the various UC licenses and hardware available from the vendor.