Launched in December, savvisdirect is expanding service with the announcement of AppGrid, a hosted private cloud offering based on CA's AppLogic cloud platform.

CenturyLink and its Savvis division are likely to garner attention with AppGrid not just because of their market position, but because they have combined the most popular capabilities of cloud computing--including monthly billing and self-service--with attributes typically associated with traditional managed services like dedicated hardware and secure networking.

The key to AppGrid's on-demand model is the drag-and-drop infrastructure GUI, which allows users to deploy and manage their own infrastructure. You can think of the GUI as WYSIWYG for the data center. Leveraging the GUI, AppGrid users can create custom infrastructure as they need it. Unlike many cloud offerings, the GUI eliminates the need for time-consuming coding to proprietary APIs. Firewalls, networks and storage are all available with just a couple clicks, allowing services to be built out quickly and modified as needed. With the GUI, users can start out small, have visibility and complete control, and still be able to scale quickly and cost effectively as their usage grows.

Moreover, AppGrid is a private cloud service, offering dedicated hardware for users. Thus, no other user can store data or run processes on the same hardware, eliminating many of the typical concerns when sharing resources in the cloud. The savvisdirect portal combines stringent security requirements with self-service.

The AppLogic team has been working closely with CenturyLink throughout the development and rollout of savvisdirect, and AppGrid is the second service launched that's based on AppLogic. Using the same platform as the basis for multiple services (something we've strived to enable with AppLogic) helped enable the rapid addition of a new service.

CenturyLink's investment in AppGrid underscores its dedication to cloud computing and innovation in bringing new services to market.