Mitel, a provider of unified communications (UC) software solutions, announced a virtualized datacenter accreditation program for datacenters, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) providers.

The new program offers a verification process to certify the infrastructure qualities required to support Mitel (News - Alert) voice and UC applications. Mitel has already certified three IaaS providers -- Artisan Infrastructure, Host.net, and Hosting.com.

The virtual accreditation program will ensure that any Managed Service Provider (MSP) or Mitel authorized partners are able to leverage cloud-based infrastructure to offer managed UC solutions.

“Managed Service Providers in North America are interested in augmenting their service portfolio with unified communication services,” said Bob Anderson, vice-president, U.S. channel marketing, Mitel, in a statement.

“However, in today's competitive environment, you can't rush to market with a user experience that might be less than optimal,” Anderson added. “Quite literally, a great user experience is the powerful competitive differentiator in the market today.”

The new program, according to Anderson, is designed to ensure their solutions are optimized with the provider's cloud-based infrastructure.

Mitel's accreditation program offers benefits for players in the cloud-based service ecosystem. It enables IaaS providers to offer differentiated services and the opportunity to add Unified Communications (News - Alert) as a Service (UCaaS) to their existing offerings.

This program identifies and brands these IaaS providers for the many MSPs looking for partners. They can rely on for a quality hosted UC service offering with a solid user experience. These MSPs can extend their service portfolio to meet the needs of their Small- and Medium-sized Business customers, company officials said.

Qualified IaaS and PaaS providers must achieve a number of technical certifications from both Mitel and VMware in addition to demonstrating technical competencies that support business continuity, high availability, disaster recovery, and redundancy to get accreditation.

“Our MSP customers have long wanted to offer hosted UC services, as they are keenly aware of the demand for these services among their SMB customer base,” said Brian Hierholzer, president and CEO of Artisan Infrastructure.