ProviDyn, an IT support, network solutions and private cloud solution provider, will kick off 2012 with a new managed services contract with ServPro, a fire, water, mold and specialty cleanup and restoration service provider. ServPro is a nationwide organization but has local franchises throughout the United States. ProviDyn’s contract is with ServPro’s branch in Atlanta, Ga. where the managed service provider (MSP) already supports many small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

Through the managed services contract, ServPro will leverage ProviDyn’s managed and private cloud services in order to build, manage and scale its own network infrastructure. ServPro’s ultimate goal, according to ServPro Owner Michael Bell, is to speed up its response time and lower the cost of its day-to-day operations. To that end, ProviDyn’s managed and private cloud suite includes the following features:

“We were impressed with the time ProviDyn invested in understanding our business,” Bell said in a prepared statement while noting that the ServPro had partnered with other MSPs in the past but was disappointed by slow response times and high costs. “Ultimately, the decision to go with ProviDyn’s private cloud eliminated a large upfront investment in equipment and personnel and brought us the benefits of an enterprise-class data center at a fraction of the cost.”

ProviDyn sees big cloud opportunities in the SMB market.But ProviDyn President Hamish Davidson has a different take: “Small and medium sized businesses have the most to gain from utilizing a private cloud,” he said. As a company, ProviDyn’s take is that SMBs have a much greater need to focus on running their business because of the intimate relationships they have with their clients, and managed cloud providers like ProviDyn allow them to do so by taking on SMBs’ day-to-day network management and long-term technology scaling.

Storage Strategies NOW (SSG-NOW), an IT industry analysis firm, has already documented the increasing interest that SMBs are showing in cloud-based business continuity technology in its Data Protection and Recovery in the Small and Mid-Sized business report. It’ll be interesting to see if SMBs take that interest in cloud technology beyond data protection solutions in 2012.