CenturyLink to Add Pay Per Hour Managed Services on Cloud Platform - Analyst Blog

CenturyLink Inc. CTL is set to launch on-demand managed services on its cloud platform for its new and existing business customers. The pay-by-the-hour offering will allow customers to select their managed services options like web servers, directory, middleware and database application, along with operating systems.

The key feature of this new service is that these options will be priced per hour unlike the traditional managed services, which require a substantial upfront payment but are billed at the end of the month. However, CenturyLink will also continue to offer managed service via the traditional model.    

The new cloud-based managed services will provide a two-fold benefit for customers by combining the agility of cloud with the certainty of managed service. The new option will be available from Jun 30, 2014 through CenturyLink's Cloud nodes in Santa Clara, CA and Sterling, VA. Eventually, the capacity will be made available in other global locations in Europe and Asia later this year.

CenturyLink will initially launch eight services, which include Windows and Red Hat Enterprise Linux managed operating systems, along with managed applications like Active Directory, Apache Tomcat, Microsoft Internet Information Services, Apache HTTP Server, MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server.

In 2013, the carrier strengthened its cloud hosting and colocation services by acquiring AppFog and Tier 3, which were later merged with Savvis to form the CenturyLink Technology Solutions unit.

CenturyLink's high-end managed services on the cloud platform will enable the company to tap new business in the market, which is currently dominated by Amazon.com Inc.'s AMZN Web Services, Microsoft Corporation's MSFT Azure and Google Inc.'s GOOG Google Cloud.

Cloud based services are gaining momentum as business enterprises continue to look for easier options to manage their IT infrastructure. We believe CenturyLink's managed services suite should help gain market traction owing to its flexibility and pairing with the cloud platform.  

CenturyLink currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).