Specifically, itelligence will provide remote SAP application support, administration and monitoring services through CBTS' newly expanded, state-of-the art data center in Lebanon, Ohio. CBTS customers will benefit from a full-service combination of leading, on-demand solutions to address their unique IT and SAP needs.

The partnership comes as companies increasingly embrace SAP in virtualized environments to increase their hardware utilization and lower their energy costs. According to VMware research, nearly 40 percent of SAP customers were trying SAP in a virtual environment in 2009. itelligence and CBTS are also entering the field of full spectrum infrastructure support for both SAP and non-SAP applications.

"We will immediately enhance our value to customers by offering core SAP applications plus the cloud--specifically dedicated, private offerings for enterprise customers with needs that exceed 100 virtual servers and require complete isolation from other customers," said Steve Short, Vice President of Outsourcing for itelligence. "By leveraging CBTS' highly regarded experience, we will provide customers with a more holistic outsourcing solution using one of the most cost-effective, technologically sound environments available."

Through itelligence Remote Application Support, CBTS customers will receive expert SAP assistance on demand, in any functional area, without incurring travel expenses. itelligence's services, ranging from second-level help desk support to remote informal training via Web conferencing to ad-hoc Basis issue resolution, enable companies to focus on core business and keep strategic resources working on value-added activities. In addition, itelligence's Remote Administration and Monitoring services ensure companies' in-house resources are properly allocated--and not wasted on hiring, training and retaining an SAP Basis staff. CBTS clients will be able to achieve Service Level Agreements by using itelligence's monitoring tools to help boost system availability and performance.

CBTS has separately agreed to enter into a partner relationship with SAP under the SAP Partner Edge Program. Through this program, CBTS will soon join itelligence as a SAP Certified Hosting Partner, authorized to provide both technical and functional support for SAP applications.

"We had a strong desire to leverage itelligence's deep SAP experience and, specifically, SAP application support and hosting expertise," said John Burns, President of CBTS. "Our partnership will enable us to effectively secure SAP hosting certification, exclusively provide SAP application level support to future customers that reside in our hosting facility, and service both domestic and global clients with one of the most comprehensive support models in the market."

"As an original Acadia partner, and given our experience with Cisco UCS, EMC and VMware, we're uniquely positioned to create, deploy, and host SAP environments," said Burns. "Our future plans include the creation of an SAP Center of Excellence for Virtualized Implementations in our Lebanon lab, as well as joint development with SAP in areas like mobile access and cloud-based applications."