Savvis's SavvisDirect service is an on-demand cloud server environment designed to compete with Amazon's EC2 and Rackspace's Cloud Server products. As with those other services, SavvisDirect allows customers to provision and order virtual server instances via the SavvisDirect web portal using their credit card.

Customers don't have to sign a contract and have no long-term commitment. As a result, SavvisDirect is great for virtual servers for small businesses or for temporary computing needs. A very common application for SavvisDirect is test/dev — companies wanting to test out new application concepts can do so without dedicating hardware and without contaminating their production environment.

No contract and no commit is great for customers, but the transaction model sidesteps the normal Savvis order process that lets partners get paid for their sales. However, there is finally a mechanism that allows you to get paid.

Option 1: Not a Good Option

The first way you can ensure you get compensated for your clients' SavvisDirect business is really not a great way to go about it, but it does work. You can direct your clients to the CCA Partner Landing Page and trust them to enter your sales ID. Direct your client to http://www.savvisdirect.com/partner/cca/cca, and tell them to enter your CenturyLink sales ID in the box outlined in red in the screen shot below:

Option 2: Pretty Much the Only Option

The better way to do this is to embed your sales ID into the link. It's simple to do — just append your sales ID to the end of the SavvisDirect partner portal link. So to use my sales ID of H94N, I'd create a link that looks like:

http://www.savvisdirect.com/partner/cca/cca/h94n

I can then put this URL on my website, in my email signature, in email newsletters, wherever. This essentially allows you to market SavvisDirect similar to other web affiliate programs, only the pay is way better. When visitors click the link, the SavvisDirect site logs your sales ID and presents your client with the standard SavvisDirect home page:

Once there, your clients can configure their servers or applications on the fly, enter their credit card information, and be up and running within a few minutes. And you'll be paid your standard commission. Note that SavvisDirect business cannot be channel integrated.

Check it out and get that URL slapped all over your website. If you don't have a CenturyLink sales ID, just get in touch with us and we'll get one for you.