Cloud Cruiser Announces Corporate Launch with Free 'Test Drive' on Cloud

Cloud Cruiser, a cloud computing software company, announced its corporate launch with a free “test drive” that allows users to test a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS (News - Alert))-based demo that optimizes costs across legacy, private, hybrid and public cloud environments.

“At its core, cloud computing is fundamentally about lowering costs. Cloud Cruiser was founded to enable companies to realize those cost savings,” said Dave Zabrowski, founder and CEO, in a statement. “Cost optimization is moving mainstream and Cloud Cruiser is the first to deliver a uniquely architected solution to meet the needs of the market.”

Through the test drive, Cloud Cruiser offers a customer-defined experience, importing real customer usage data into the Cloud Cruiser SaaS environment. The demo provides IT organizations with a single-lens granular view of cost information across their legacy and cloud workloads.

The company also announced the customizable tools called Cloud Optimizer that provide end-to-end cost transparency, benchmarking, next generation chargeback and business intelligence (BI) analytics, company officials said.

This solution, according to company officials, is the industry’s first cost optimization solution across legacy, private, hybrid and public cloud computing environments. It enables organizations to migrate to the cloud with confidence regardless of where their data resides.

“As more and more customers consider moving to the cloud, end-to-end cost and chargeback transparency is essential,” stated Mark Hindsbo, vice president of U.S. Developer and Platform Evangelism Group, Microsoft (News - Alert), in a statement. “Together, the public cloud offering of the Windows Azure Platform and Cloud Cruiser play an important role in winning customer confidence and increasing speed to market.”

According to Jay Pultz, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner (News - Alert), accurate and transparent chargeback is a key requirement in this age of cloud computing. “By 2015, we forecast more than 50 percent of the Global 2000 will charge back most IT costs using service-based pricing, up from less than 10 percent today. New integrated tools will be needed to implement IT service-based chargeback.”

The free test drive is offered at the Cloud Connect Conference in the Santa Clara Convention Center, March 7-10.

Cloud Cruiser is a new venture launched in 2010. In August last year, Cloud Cruiser was voted "Best of Show" at the VCTaskforce Angel Investing Event held in Palo Alto (News - Alert) and announced that Wavepoint Ventures has led the company's first round of financing.