Ex-Microsoft Strategist Launches UK-Focused InstaCloud

An ex-Microsoft technology strategist has launched a cloud company called InstaCloud targeting UK businesses with private cloud hosting.

InstaCloud co-founder Steve Belton worked as a senior partner technology strategist at Microsoft from 2011 to 2013.

He claims that with the explosion of data that UK small and medium business are witnessing, a new private cloud option is needed to give more control and confidence in the safety of data stored in the cloud, without the big-business price tag.

“Get the power of the cloud without the burden of owning and running it,” the company boasts.

Cloud OS technology

The InstaCloud service is based on Microsoft’s Cloud OS technology and is offered with VM’s running Windows Server 2012 R2, including the licenses at no extra cost.

InstaCloud said that bandwidth provision is free of charge, with RAM and storage usage charged at a fixed rate. Network connectivity uses a software defined network and Cisco switches and firewalls.

Solutions are provisioned with hardware and network redundancy in mind, said InstaCloud, giving small businesses confidence in the integrity of their data, with NetApp storage ensuring “high performance and stability” at all times.

“Security and data sovereignty issues associated with the public cloud have tarnished large scale adoption of cloud services among the small business community in particular, in recent years,” said Belton.

“With many dismissing private cloud as an option and lacking the funds to go down this route, we have been slow to break down the barriers to take-up. Through InstaCloud we aim to give an affordable and realistic option to small businesses and a way out of relying solely on public cloud, which is often not fit for purpose or designed for consumer use.”

InstaCloud is offering up a 30 day free trial to entice businesses to the service, and prices appear to start from £30 p/m for a basic 2 vCPU, 2GB RAM, 160GB storage set up.

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