CenturyLink, Inc. today announced that it has combined the strength of its national network with its industry-leading portfolio of Savvis cloud services for the United States launch of savvisdirect, a simple, cost-effective cloud computing solution for businesses of all sizes.

Business users, IT administrators and developers can easily access the savvisdirect web portal to gain instant access to the full range of offerings, including Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications, on-demand virtual servers, storage services and application development platforms. Developers have a broad range of server and scalable storage options. IT administrators have one place to procure, configure and manage cloud services. Business users simply have a cloud that works, with service level agreements and 24/7 support.

"IT may be complex, but that doesn't mean it has to be complicated," said Andrew Higginbotham, president of savvisdirect. "Savvisdirect gives all businesses enterprise-level IT capabilities without the cost and headaches of purchasing, installation and maintenance. Using a credit card, they get hourly or monthly servers and storage, monthly application subscriptions, plus an intuitive Management Console and 24/7 access to IT professionals who can help with technical questions. We turn complex into simple."

John Hebert, an IT administrator for more than a decade, faced the same challenges that many in his industry have, including the loss of data, failures in email backup and server downtime. After participating in the savvisdirect beta launch, Hebert says the services are easy to use and manage and was impressed with the level of customer service.

"The overall savvisdirect experience is well-geared for businesses, even those who don't fully understand cloud," said Hebert. "It's very clean and easy to use, and it's nice to have multiple services from a single provider. The Management Console is a launch pad, so navigation is straightforward and brings everything together. The customer support has been great, responsive and knowledgeable."

Higginbotham said, "We've also received high marks from our beta users for our FastForward Onboarding, a feature that lets customers quickly implement our cloud-based applications, servers and storage by choosing the level of support they need along the way. At savvisdirect, we believe getting to the cloud should be fast and easy. We invite businesses of all sizes to give us a try."

Savvisdirect combines the global infrastructure of CenturyLink, which recently announced that it is delivering 100 gigabits per second (Gbps) technology across its nationwide network, and CenturyLink's cloud services through Savvis, a worldwide leader in cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions, to deliver an unsurpassed IT management offering for enterprise and small businesses.

Savvisdirect is now available throughout North America and will expand into Europe and Asia in 2013. For more information about savvisdirect, visit www.savvisdirect.com