Eucalyptus Systems, the leading provider of AWS-compatible private and hybrid cloud computing software, today appointed Barry Duplantis as vice president of Customer Success. The program offers support at every step of the way in a customer's journey to the cloud -- from initial interest in private clouds to full-scale deployments. The addition of Duplantis strengthens the program, increasing the level of open source expertise and first-class support customers have grown to expect from Eucalyptus.

In an industry where the rate of innovation is unprecedented, Eucalyptus enables customers to maximize agility and speed -- no matter how large or small the deployment. The customer success program helps companies of all sizes, and at all levels of experience, to benefit from the power of the cloud. For example, by working with the success program, one customer has continually grown their private cloud usage 25% month over month. Another took a dev/test cloud into production in a matter of days. In addition, a recent survey by North Bridge and GigaOm validates the effectiveness of the cloud at delivering greater agility, scalability and cost savings, while providing a strong competitive advantage.

A seasoned executive, Duplantis brings more than 20 years of software support services and operations expertise from Red Hat, Alfresco, Opsware, and HP. Expanding his prowess in open source and innovative technologies, Duplantis will spearhead Eucalyptus' services teams to ensure the successful development and support of the company's rapidly growing customer ecosystem. Duplantis recently served as VP of Customer Services at Alfresco, an open source enterprise content management system. Prior to Alfresco, Duplantis played an integral role at Opsware where he ran support services. His contributions led to the successful acquisition by HP in 2007, at which point Duplantis led Global Incident Management Support, setting worldwide support strategy and direction for the entire HP Software portfolio. Duplantis also spent 6 years at Red Hat leading Global Support Services, successfully transitioning their support services from a hobbyist and user-focused model to an enterprise subscription-based business.

"As existing private clouds grow in size and new customers deploy Eucalyptus, we are taking our customer service to a new level," said Marten Mickos, CEO of Eucalyptus. "Barry Duplantis brings a unique skill-set and outstanding track record in orchestrating modern-age customer service of the highest quality, enabling software teams to be more agile."

"Eucalyptus has developed a winning engagement model optimized for agility and mature cloud deployments," said Duplantis. "The company has established a strong, dedicated base of customers who want to push the Eucalyptus software to the max. I look forward to overseeing the journey of all these customers to ensure we get them beyond early adopter private cloud usage to fully deployed in production environments and beyond."