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2013 Review of Cloudvara

Brian Tankersley

Jul. 29, 2013

Best Firm Fit: Organizations who need to host a small number of non-standard applications in a high availability environment for access in multiple locations. Also, small to mid-sized firms (1-50 users) and small businesses who wish to host all of their applications on a cloud server. The company considers itself a “boutique” hosting firm that understands clients’ needs.

Strengths:

  • Technical support is available 24 hours per day, 365 days a year from personnel in the US and New Delhi, India.
  • The company is a relatively small hosting company, and focuses on providing customized solutions and personalized service to its customers. The company’s website indicates that they will host “any application which may be required to support a customer’s operations”.
  • The Company’s servers are hosted in a major provider’s central US data center designed for high availability (Tier IV). The hosting product utilizes standard technologies like Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft HyperV, and Citrix Xen.
  • At approximately $37 per month (plus the cost of licensing), the Company’s single application hosting is affordable for those who want to host a small number of applications.

Potential Limitations:

  • The company is not a member of the Authorized Commercial Hosting Program for QuickBooks.

Overview

Cloudvara (formerly known as Real Time Data Service) is a southern California based hosting company which operates from a major data center in the Central US with engineering and support operations in New Delhi, India. The company positions itself as a specialized boutique hosting company which focuses on firms between 10 and 15 users, although they host firms as small as two users and some as large as 75 users. Approximately 50% of the Company’s users are tax, accounting, and bookkeeping professionals, and the other half are small businesses across a wide range of industries.

The company provides custom virtual servers for hosting a wide range of applications for end users. Services are provided on a month to month basis, paid in advance. Cloudvara is not a member of the Intuit Authorized Commercial Hosting program or a Sage 50 Accounting Hosting Provider, although they report that they host both QuickBooks and the US version of Sage 50. Other applications hosted by the Company include Microsoft Office, Goldmine, ProSeries Tax, Lacerte Tax, Drake Tax, Tax, inflow Inventory, and “any other applications which may be required to support your operations.”

Unlike other providers, Cloudvara provides only hosting services. Users must acquire their own licenses for all applications which are installed on the company’s servers. The company does not provide hosting services for Microsoft’s Exchange groupware application and resells Exchange hosting from another provider to these customers.

The company reports that its servers are operated from a Central US-based HIPPA compliant Tier IV data center operated by a major provider, and its offshore support personnel cannot access data stored in the hosting environment since the data is password protected. Cloudvara supports firms in a number of offshore locations, including Dubai, France, and China.

Support is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. 20% of the company’s support calls are handled from California, and 80% of the calls are handled from the New Delhi office.

Summary and Pricing

Cloudvara offers a number of hosting plans, beginning with a Starter plan (1 user, 1 application, 3 GB storage) for $37 per month, and go up to a Corporate plan (10 users, 4 applications, 30 GB storage) for $349 per month. Additional applications can be added to all accounts except the Starter account for $10 per month per application, and extra users can be added for between $34 and $37 depending on the plan selected.