A new enterprise cloud platform from COLT is intended to deliver managed services to financial end users, enabling banks, insurers or others to use network or data centre infrastructure or virtualisation capabilities in the cloud to match their business requirements

A range of services will be rolled out during 2009, starting with COLT's Managed Workspace, which provides access to 'on demand' remote desktop applications, such as Office, Sharepoint, Messaging and Blackberry's. The COLT Cloud Infrastructure Services offering uses virtualised servers, providing storage and backup as needed. The third Managed Application Services offering gives customers access to shared and dedicated resources, linked to service level agreements. All services will be live by year end.

While virtualisation of network, storage and computing power is key to the provisioning of COLT's enterprise cloud, the services aren't just about the technology - specially crafted pricing models can be created upon request, especially based upon predictable high-useage based options.

Commenting on the move, Maggy McClelland, managing director of COLT Managed Services, said: "For years the CIO has had to balance asset ownership with providing flexibility and innovation. I believe enterprise cloud computing is now allowing that balance to tip in favour of cost-efficiency."

• In other news, COLT announced in September that it has joined the VMware vCloud initiative, which it believes further demonstrates the firm 's commitment to partner with key players to deliver enterprise cloud services.

Under the VMware vCloud initiative, VMware works closely with cloud providers to deliver users a reliable, enterprise ready experience without the lock-in associated with many currently available cloud options. This enables customers to retain flexibility of choice irrespective of hardware, operating system or applications, so they can feel confident about deploying current and future applications internally or to COLT's cloud services. Customers will now have more freedom to choose when and how to take advantage of cloud services to drive greater levels of business efficiency, security and performance.

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