Computing as a Service (CaaS)

Overview

Compute in the clouds for low cost, on-demand, flexible and secure server applications – from a single, top-reputation provider.
Verizon Global Wholesale's Computing as a Service (CaaS) enables you, our carrier customers, to customize your own powerful IT clouds for access to bandwidth, servers, storage and firewalls. CaaS provides you dynamic, real-time control over what, when and how you deploy the computing service resources. Computing as a Service allows Verizon Global Wholesale's customers to decide how to configure an IT infrastructure that delivers the best possible ratio of IT costs to business performance.

Plant your customized virtual farm of computing capabilities in a Verizon cloud.
Verizon Global Wholesale refers to each of our CaaS clouds as a virtual farm of computing resources enabled by Verizon's superior, powerful and reliable telecom backbone. Our CaaS virtual farms are multi-tiered and 100 percent portal managed, providing you super control over your business expenditures while capitalizing on maximum computing capabilities.

Computing as a Service flawlessly delivers a cloud-contained virtual farm that comprises a flexible, yet standardized, on-demand IT infrastructure solution specifically designed to help you manage your ever-changing business needs – immediately – as change is necessary. What you experience as a Verizon Global Wholesale customer is very low cost and secure computing power. Thus, you can easily and more efficiently enable applications as you desire – no matter how large or small. Even better, you turn the IT cloud power on and off as you need. Simply use CaaS to save money and time instead of incurring traditional IT capital expenditures, and/or subscribing to high dollar computing-related services you don’t fully utilize.

Harvest your carrier applications at the speed of business.
Computing as a Service enables lower cost, extremely efficient carrier applications that are limited only by your imagination. For example, you can more quickly and powerfully:

  • Produce storefronts that entice new business and maintain loyalty from current customers;
  • Scale computing resources as needed to manage peak seasonal demand, such as company open enrollments so you are not paying for idle infrastructure;
  • Run huge end-user promotions to enhance visibility and grow market share;
  • Manage end-user billing, collections, customer support, and other back-office functions for increased efficiency;
  • Launch new products and services to maximize market share, and realize revenues sooner;
  • Build and manipulate databases of information to help you market and deploy business strategies for greater profitability; and
  • Many more things!

You can build exactly what you need when you need it, maintain it, and/or turn it up, down or off when complete. What now takes you weeks and months to provision takes merely minutes or hours when you subscribe to Verizon's Computing as a Service infrastructure solution.

Reap the advantages of CaaS virtual farms in a cloud.
Backed by Verizon's reputation for reliability and vast infrastructure backbone, depend on CaaS to deliver the following elements as part of the service.

Control. The "core" of our CaaS platform is a proprietary management application we call the Advanced Workflow and Automated Resource Engine. It provides you full automation and workflow for provisioning computing resources, automatic resource fail-over, and managing network, server and storage elements. You control your CaaS resources through the Customer Management portal. This portal lets you create unique virtual farms comprised of both virtual and physical servers, on-demand. CaaS also has built-in intelligence to redeploy another server quickly in the event of a problem.

Flexibility. Choose to design and manage your virtual farm in a cloud infrastructure yourself, or opt to let Verizon Global Wholesale do it for you. Select your infrastructure components (network, physical/virtual servers, storage, and management levels) that are right for your business demands. Synchronize CaaS with your current business needs by scaling capacity up and down, and paying for what you use, when you use it.

Affordable. Five different usage tiers makes Verizon's CaaS ideal and affordable for any size Verizon carrier. Connect to your CaaS environment through Verizon's public IP backbone or by leveraging our Private IP (Layer 3 MPLS VPN) network. Do more for less money while easily responding to market conditions as they impact you. Create any number of virtual farms, each with a different service level to meet a variety of computing purposes, such as a production virtual farm and a staging environment. Deploying separate CaaS virtual farm clouds allows you to provision both virtual and physical servers – on-demand.

Security. Rest assured that your data and networks are secure from the outside in with Verizon's world-class embedded security. CaaS includes a layered approach that provides:

  • Physical security for each data center that embeds network intrusion detection. CaaS physical security results in a secure, stable and rigorously tested environment that is Cybertrust Security certified.
  • Network segmentation security through virtual firewalls, load balancers and secure carrier portal access.
  • Verizon's CaaS is PCI Certified via Trustwave.

Benefits

  • Computing as a Service is a hosting service that delivers utility computing services in a cloud-based infrastructure. Because CaaS is specifically designed for Verizon Global Wholesale carriers , the service gives you measurable advantages over competitive carriers who use multiple computer and software providers who may not be as experienced or as reliable as Verizon. You have a sole source advantage that is large and powerful enough to meet all your computing needs – on demand – and at appreciable cost and time savings.
  • Verizon owns one of the world's largest IP networks available today. Our CaaS offers superior capabilities and capacities in the form of servers, storage, bandwidth, networks, and more. Whether your carrier computing infrastructure needs are small or large, you can depend on Verizon Global Wholesale to have just the right infrastructure solution – without your having to make capital investments or wait for equipment and build-out.
  • Verizon Network Operations Centers monitor network efficiency 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Count on flawless, fast, and highly reliable service from us.
  • Our highly redundant peering architecture, with both public Internet Exchange Points and direct point-to-point private and dedicated cloud-based infrastructure solutions provide you with critically-acclaimed, seamless functionality.
  • Leverage the CaaS options, flexibility, efficiency, cost-effectiveness, growth advantages, and control over your internal capacity and capability needs to strengthen your brand, and grow, maintain and expand your business in real time.

The Innovative CaaS Model – Just for Carriers.
CaaS is one of the most innovative and cost-effective ways to build your own computing infrastructure to support business goals. Eliminate lengthy internal development processes and significantly improve your capabilities and capacities using Verizon Global Wholesale's Computing as a Service. CaaS is the best way today to meet constantly changing market conditions by responding fast and securely with limited IT budgets – while increasing profitability.

Take a virtual tour.

Description

Verizon Global Wholesale is a leader in delivering communications and network solutions to service providers around the world. Computing as a Service (CaaS) extends these capabilities by delivering a flexible, cost-effective and standardized on-demand IT infrastructure solution designed to help you manage your rapidly changing business needs.

CaaS Addresses Your Biggest Concerns

  • Security – Be confident knowing your data and networks are secure from the outside-in with physical security of the data centers, security of customer portal, and logical security of the environment.
  • Flexibility – Choose infrastructure components (network, physical or virtual servers, storage, and management levels) that are right for your business demands.
  • Reliability – Built-in intelligence that enables servers to be re-deployed quickly in the event of a problem – every CaaS server is a highly available server resource.
  • Control – Respond quickly to business conditions and maintain control over your infrastructure configuration and capacity with our CaaS Customer Portal.

With CaaS, you have access to bandwidth, servers, storage, and firewalls with dynamic real-time control over what, when, and how those resources are deployed. You decide how your infrastructure comes together to deliver the best possible ratio of IT cost to business performance.

Since June 1, 2009, the Verizon CaaS environment has had its security controls, policies, and procedures examined, measured, and validated against a stringent set of information security standards.

Availability

CaaS is currently available to any Verizon Global Wholesale customer wishing to do business in the United States. Additionally, the current CaaS offering is an infrastructure solution for our direct Wholesale customer base, and is not yet available for resale. Contact your Account Manager for more details.

Pricing

When moving to the cloud, your company can transition its IT business model from a capital expense model to an operational expense model. Usage-based pricing allows you to charge back to internal departments or application owners for resources consumed. Charges are based on daily usage of all CaaS resources including: Servers by device, storage per gigabit, Bandwidth per Mbps and Software per CPU/Device.

Customer Controlled Usage-based Pricing CaaS provides simple and transparent usage-based pricing, allowing you to pay for what you use when you use it, and thereby better align IT costs to corporate revenue streams. Charges are based on daily usage of all CaaS resources, billed in arrears at the end of each month. A one year minimum term commitment is required.

Features

Designed With Security in Mind

Don't Sacrifice Security for Performance
Data is your business, keeping that data secure is our business. Computing as a Service (CaaS) allows you to better manage your costs and make your business more competitive without sacrificing security or performance. Security is built into the entire CaaS infrastructure.

  • Physical security of our Data Centers
  • Single sign-on customer portal with controlled access list
  • Logical security of environment to include:
    • Network Intrusion Detection
    • Load balancer controls application exposure to the Internet
    • Multi-tiered network with virtual firewall
    • Patching
    • Secure connections to provisioned resources
    • Hardened OS built on private network

Although your servers may reside in a virtual environment, the building blocks of each server configuration consist of virtual firewalls with a multi-tiered network and load balancers to control application exposure to the Internet.

Control Costs and Gain Flexibility

Tap into Computing Capacity When and Where Your Business Needs It
Building out your infrastructure to meet potential increases in demand is no longer cost effective. However, not being able to deliver when it counts can harm your customer relationships and impact your bottom line. You need flexible, on-demand platforms that enable you to do more with existing resources.

Provision Both Virtual and Physical Servers On-Demand
Verizon's CaaS is one way to become more flexible, achieve greater efficiencies and control costs. We leverage our SaaS experience and heritage as a complex hosting provider to deliver utility computing services.

  • Quickly develop and provision new applications – in minutes or hours, not days.
  • Scale capacity up and down in synch with the needs of your business.
  • Easily respond to market conditions while maintaining control over your infrastructure configuration and capacity.

Connection Options to Suit Your Needs
Customers have the flexibility to connect to their CaaS environment through our global IP backbone or by leveraging the Verizon Private IP network (our Layer 3 MPLS VPN) for secure communication with mission critical and back office systems.

Every CaaS Server is a Highly Available Server Resource

Let Our Engine Automate Your Resource Provisioning
At the heart of the CaaS platform is the Advanced Workflow and Automated Resource Engine (the "Core"). Leveraging over 15 years of IT Management Experience, the Core is designed to provide full automation and workflow for computing resource provisioning, automatic resource fail-over, and management of all network, server and storage elements. The Core is a proprietary management application that orchestrates requests to:

  • Add computing resources dynamically (network, virtual or physical servers, storage)
  • Reconfigure or turn down resources (open or change ports)
  • Move server images located within the CaaS infrastructure (Virtual to Virtual, Physical to Physical)
  • Implement server failover (move MAC addresses, network ports, HBA addresses, allowing reboot in minutes)
  • CaaS users interact with the Core through the CaaS Customer Portal.

Built-in Intelligence Backed by Competitive SLAs
The CaaS Core has built-in intelligence that enables a server to be re-deployed quickly in the event of a problem. When server redeployment is initiated from the Core, the server image – including all appropriate server configuration details – is moved to a new CaaS server resource.

The only downtime a customer experiences is the time required to reboot the server, which can be as quick as a matter of minutes. As a result, every CaaS server is by definition a highly available server resource but without the cost of redundant, passive servers that are typical of traditional dedicated hosting solutions. This helps control costs by eliminating the need for redundant infrastructure, while still maintaining service levels. And, because we designed CaaS to be highly available, we are able to offer stringent availability service level agreements (SLAs). Our comprehensive SLAs include 100% availability of the Customer Portal and virtual farm, regardless of management option. Those choosing to rely on Verizon to manage their servers rather than doing it themselves receive additional SLAs such as 100% server availability and specific response and resolution timeframes.*

Dynamic Control Over When and How Your Computing Resources Are Deployed

Complete Visibility Into the Cloud
A key concern that many organizations have with cloud computing is the lack of direct control over their cloud-based infrastructure and systems. We remedy this problem with the CaaS Customer Portal—a central hub for all customer provisioning and management activities that offers an easy-to-use, web-based interface with self-service and reporting functionality. Wrap Text around Image

Computing as a Service Customer Portal
The CaaS Customer Portal allows customers to:

  • Assign and configure virtual farms with the resources needed
    • Servers – choice of operating system as well as physical or virtual servers
    • Storage – Option to provision additional storage and backup
  • Provision physical servers, virtual servers, storage, backup and application support services within each farm
  • Decommission, modify and manage on-demand resources as needed
  • View detailed reporting on the resources deployed
  • Open and view service requests

Virtual Farms: Harvesting the Potential of Cloud Computing

Built From the Ground Up
Virtual farms are the basic building blocks of every CaaS solution. Virtual farms provide you with a secure and resilient network configuration to maintain availability, performance and security. Dynamically provision one or more virtual farm, each with its own unique network configuration, to meet the varying needs of your business.

Virtual Farm with Intelligent Networking
Every virtual farm comes securely bundled with a virtual load balancer, a virtual firewall, and defined network space. Once the farm is designed, built, and named – all in a matter of minutes through the CaaS Customer Management Portal - you can then choose whether you want to manage the servers in-house or have us manage them for you. Choose which resources are best for your environment or application needs.

  • Network – Choose to configure for publicly facing applications or trusted network space
  • Servers – Choice of operating systems (Windows or Linux) and virtual or physical servers
  • Storage – Option to provision additional storage and backup

    • Any number of virtual farms can be created, and each can have a different service level—either Customer-managed or Verizon-managed. This provides you the flexibility to setup virtual farms for a variety of computing purposes. For example, you can provision a fully-managed production virtual farm in which all objects running within the farm are cared for by Verizon, while a second virtual farm may be provisioned as a staging environment with no managed services. This offers you the advantage of being able to provision both virtual and physical servers on-demand.

      * Terms and conditions apply. Contact your Account Representative for details.

      Detailed Information

      Each Virtual Farm includes the following features:

      • Virtual Firewalls. CaaS Virtual Firewalls use the default Verizon rule set to maintain security standards. Rule set modifications that do not violate Verizon security policies can be requested to suit individual business needs.
      • Virtual Load Balancer. CaaS provides a virtual load balancer with each Virtual Farm. All inbound and outbound server traffic is managed via the Virtual Load Balancer. The Virtual Load Balancer also manages the SSL traffic which will terminate at the host. SSL certificates are available from Verizon but must be purchased outside of the CaaS Management Portal.
      • Remote Access. Customers will be able to access their CaaS server resources to upload content by connecting to a dedicated secure 'bastion host'. A bastion host is a special purpose virtual machine on the CaaS network specifically designed to provide access to CaaS server resources.
      • Multi-Tiered Network. Each CaaS Virtual Farm provides a two-tiered network space providing up to 160 host IP addresses. Each Virtual Farm supports a trusted network that is accessible only to other servers within CaaS as well as a DMZ network that can be configured to communicate to the public internet. The CaaS network is not open to the public Internet unless the customer explicitly opens appropriate ports.

      When a Virtual Farm is created customers have two options for network connectivity:

      • Public IP
      • Private IP

      Attachments

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