independenceIT Integrates Desktop-As-A-Service Offering With Amazon Web Services

independenceIT has expanded its Desktop-as-a-Service offering with an Amazon Web Services integration option, the Allentown, Penn.-based company said earlier this week.

The company's Cloud Workspace Suite provides a virtualization solution to help partners and IT administrators automate and manage Desktop-as-a-Service rollouts under a single pane of glass. With the addition of AWS, the solution is cloud agnostic across private, public and hybrid environments, CEO Seth Bostock said.

For AWS alone, Bostock said that workspaces operate as an "island in the cloud," with partners left to build the connectivity, networking and storage around it. AWS gives partners the tools to build it themselves and independenceIT gives them the tools to automate and manage it all, Bostock said.

[Related: VMware Looking To Attract ISVs To Its Public Cloud With New Partner Program]

"With this AWS announcement, we're going to make it much easier for the partner community and IT administrators to deploy, manage and scale ... across AWS environments," Bostock said.

Bostock predicts partners will appreciate the flexibility that expanded integration options bring to the table. The addition of the AWS integration, in particular, gives partners the ability to offer customers the brand recognition of Amazon Web Services, he said.

"A lot of companies like the name brands," Bostock said. "So, now our partner communities can easily deploy on any of those clouds ... but it's not going to change the way they run the business under a single pain of glass. ... From what we're seeing, it’s a huge selling feature."

Chuck Bubeck, president and CEO of Columbia, Md.-based Ease Technologies, said he appreciates having additional cloud options to bring to his customers. Being able to offer the Amazon brand will add "reach and exposure," he said.

Bubeck has been a partner of independenceIT for more than two years. The offering appealed to him initially because it was cloud agnostic, allowed for a hypervisor and allowed for white-labeled solutions, he said.

"Our goal as an MSP is to provide our clients with the most cost-effective solutions for their needs and independenceIT’s product suite was the easiest and most flexible option to customize and add to our services. Their experience and knowledge of the MSP market needs also make them an easy partner to work with while allowing us to deliver our own solution tailored for the customer," Bubeck said.

As the offering evolves, Bubeck said he would like to see more direct management and administration options. Bubeck said that Ease Technologies also plans on taking advantage of independenceIT's API-driven environments for more Software-as-a-Service offerings.

"They have been responsive to requests in the past and we anticipate they will continue to do so as the DaaS and cloud marketplace continues to evolve at light speed pace," Bubeck said.

PUBLISHED SEPT. 26, 2014