SingleHop, a leading provider of on-demand hosted private clouds and managed hosting, today introduced the availability of ServiceFirst managed services for Microsoft Azure public cloud to be delivered by recently-acquired, Microsoft-focused operating division, Server Intellect. With a comprehensive portfolio of managed services, automated tools and expert staff, SingleHop's Server Intellect team will help customers deploy and manage Azure-hosted VMs faster and more efficiently with improved security and performance. The new offering provides additional layers of services not available from Microsoft Azure.

The suite of services addresses the market's steady adoption of hybrid cloud by delivering a solution that seamlessly manages workloads across existing and new Azure deployments, private clouds, and bare metal environments.

With hybrid cloud estimated to grow from about $25.28 billion in 2014 to about $84.67 billion in 2019, Azure stands to take a good part of that share. In Microsoft's third quarter fiscal 2015 report, Microsoft's cloud posted triple-digit growth - up 106% during the quarter. Azure is growing at nearly double the rate of AWS, closing the gap between the two in the public cloud arena.

"Azure is a desirable choice for many organizations, but public cloud often lacks the degree of support to make it work smoothly and efficiently," said Adam Cady, Director of Third Party Managed Services, SingleHop. "Server Intellect's advanced support for Azure makes moving workloads across the Azure stack and private environments simple. We extend full service and support through the operating system level while giving customers as much visibility and control as they desire. With this solution, customers no longer have to choose between Azure infrastructure and great service and support."

Unique Approach to Managed Azure