Waters Rankings 2015: Best Cloud Infrastructure Provider ─ Eze Castle Integration

But Eze Castle Integration (ECI) has been in the business of providing private cloud infrastructure since 2005 and has established itself as a leader in the space, even if the company was ahead of its time when it first started to turn to the cloud.

The Eze Private Cloud has three areas of focus. The first is the Eze Managed Suite, a fully managed IT solution that combines Eze's secure private infrastructure along with key business applications and professional IT management. Second is the Eze Managed Infrastructure, which offers an enterprise-grade private environment that allows firms to cut expenses on hardware and upgrades, monitoring and maintenance. And finally the Eze Managed Data Availability offers a range of business resiliency services that include disaster recovery, online backup and message archiving.

More than 350 firms are supported on the Eze Private Cloud. Part of its winning formula has been to address cyber-security head-on. ECI launched the Eze Active Threat Protection Service in partnership with eSentire back in December last year. The offering provides users with an end-to-end service that allows hedge funds of any size to implement advanced cyber-security protection and policies.

The company has also produced an educational series on cyber security for hedge funds, and recently earned the UK government's Cyber Essentials Certification following a review of its security controls by certification body, Indelible Data.

In October, Eze enhanced its Eze Managed Suite by adding Microsoft and Varonis applications. The additions to the cloud offering, which features mission-critical business applications, includes Microsoft's Lync platform for unified communications and Varonis' DatAnywhere and DatAdvantage tools for enterprise-wide file sharing, synchronization and governance.

"For hedge funds and alternative investment firms with dispersed workforces and clients, the ability to collaborate via the cloud is essential to productivity and agility-both critical to growing profitable organizations," said Bob Guilbert, managing director of Eze Castle Integration, in a recent press release. "Eze Managed Suite continues to evolve to stay ahead of our customers' needs for company-wide, unified communications that comply with their stringent data governance requirements."