NaviSite Bets On Oracle-Sun Managed Services

Here’s some coincidental timing: Last night I noted that Oracle was preparing to take more steps with managed services providers. Fast forward to the present, and NaviSite says it’s embracing Oracle’s Sun servers for a range of managed services offerings. Here are some of the details.

NaviSite is a well-known managed hosting provider that has about 1,500 customers across 10 datacenters in the U.S. and United Kingdom. To build on those efforts, NaviSite is using Sun SPARC enterprise servers, Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux and a range of Oracle applications. NaviSite says it’s also using Sun x86 blade servers for virtualized application environments. Plus, Oracle E-business Suite Financials and a customer portal run on the the Oracle platform.

I realize: NaviSite is more of a managed hosting provider, and the company doesn’t really compete with smaller MSPs serving SMB customers. But NaviSite’s decision to leverage Oracle so heavily across its managed hosting and managed services practices caught my attention.

NaviSite claims:

At the Avnet Technology Solutions Partner Summit in Colorado this week, Oracle is working overtime to get Sun partners trained on Oracle solutions. NaviSite sounds like it’s a true believer in that strategy.

Meanwhile, an Oracle spokesperson says Oracle’s on-demand solutions are also catching on with MSPs. And it’s safe to expect Oracle to soon promote Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (DVI) technology to MSP-type partners as well. My best guess is the Oracle VDI partner push will start around Oracle OpenWorld in September 2010 or so.

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