Cloud Host Linode Adds Professional Services Support OptionCloud Host Linode Adds Professional Services Support Option

As SSD cloud hosting and storage provider Linode continues to redefine itself, its latest move is the introduction of a “Professional Services” option that adds full deployment and management off-loading to the company’s customer service offerings.

Professional Services is a fee-for-service support option designed to allow enterprises to hire Linode staff to perform work on their clouds. “Should a customer not have the time, expertise, inclination or staff-bandwidth to tackle essential sysAdmin duties, Linode can be enlisted to implement them,” the company said.

Linode envisions those duties including site migrations and web-, database- and email-server installations, as well as control-panel deployments during a Linode build, it said in a statement. The services are available at the rate of $100 per hour for regular Linode customers, or $75 per hour for those subscribing to the Linode Managed plan.

The company hopes the new offering will help draw business from enterprises that lack the resources or in-house expertise to take full advantage of the cloud efficiently. “Installing a customized LAMP stack or configuring a specialized website can be risky,” said Linode CEO Christopher S. Aker. “The Professional Services team is well-trained to handle these sysadmin tasks. Our expertise can reduce build time, ensure a build’s integrity, free up the customer’s time and staff to attend to other matters, and deliver a solid return on the investment.”

The move follows Linode’s announcement earlier this summer that it would slash cloud-hosting prices and introduce high-end hardware to its storage and computing infrastructure, which transformed the company from a cloud host focused on providing Linux-based infrastructure that would appeal to a technically savvy crowd committed to open source hardware, to one that now offers broader hosting options and is seeking to stand out from the crowd through high-end infrastructure and sophisticated support solutions.