For over a month, thousands of people have been voting for a Knoxville area non-profit to receive a giveaway of $200,000 in IT services. Last Thursday, WBIR News Channel 10 made the announcement: Big Brothers Big Sisters of East Tennessee won a free three-year cloud computing contract from Claris Networks.

Chattanooga’s fiber optics and gig-speed internet have opened the door to new business opportunities. Claris Networks, for example, has been able to expand considerably as a result of the affordable high speed internet. Nooga.com asked for our perspective on the new technology.

Chad Andrews, father of 4 and 1 on the way, received a timely gift from his work family. In an effort to bless its team members, Claris Networks ran an internal contest called the “Extreme Car Makeover.” All employees got to vote for one of their peers to receive $1,000 toward necessary repairs and a top notch detailing. By a landslide, Chad Andrews received the most nominations. When his car broke down the day of the drawing, Claris bought him a 2011 Impala instead of giving the old Volvo a makeover.

A third-party development team called Cloud Sleuth has created an objective application to examine and report the response times of cloud infrastructures around the world. At the time of this writing, Claris Networks supports the tenth fasted cloud on the planet. You can see how Claris compares to companies like Google, Amazon, Rackspace and Microsoft.

MSPmentor.net - Claris Networks has achieved the #45 position in a ranking of top 100 Managed Service Providers in the world. An annual report by MSPmentor.net uses metrics such as managed services recurring revenue growth, network devices managed, end-user devices managed, profitability per employee, etc. This marks Claris’s fourth consecutive year on the list, and Claris is the only company in Knoxville, Chattanooga or East Tennessee to make the cut.

Knoxnews.com - "Every Sunday morning before his three young kids wake and the work week begins, Dave Sagraves spends two hours at Dunkin Donuts. He sips coffee and plans for the week. He decides when to schedule meetings with clients at his cloud computing firm, when he is coaching 5-year-old son Andy's soccer practices and which night will be date night with his wife, Krista. The West Knoxvillian has to plan ahead in order to keep his family-life straight and help run his cutting-edge business, Claris Networks."

Knoxnews.com - "When William Brown started running long distance seriously last year, the last thing on his mind was selling his car and running or biking almost everywhere, every day, rain or shine. But that's just what Brown has set out to do for the next six months. "Today I Run" is what Brown has named his challenge, for which he will run or bike every day up to 25 miles one-way or 50 miles round-trip. The challenge began March 1 and will end Sept. 1. The question is, why?"

Knoxnews.com - Claris Networks has been named a finalist in the 2011 Knoxville Chamber of Commerce Pinnacle Business Awards. Claris is in the running with two other Knoxville-based small businesses in the “Small Business Excellence.” “This award will be presented to an East Tennessee small business that has consistently grown its workforce and revenue. The winner will be able to demonstrate its ability to overcome obstacles including access to capital, operational efficiency, control of expenses, customer loyalty and distribution of products or services and should provide a historical index of growth in revenues and workforce.”

Knoxnews.com - "Larry Bodie doesn't think business owners should have to worry about maintaining the technology their companies' need to operate. As CEO of Claris Networks, Bodie has spent the past year helping the managed services provider become a worldwide industry leader. 'The employees here are what makes this company what it is,' he says."

MSPmentor.net - "Claris Networks, ranked number 52 on our MSPmentor 100, specializes in cloud hosting — a pretty familiar term these days. But how does Claris differentiate from rivals? Here’s an update on how the Knoxville, Tennessee company is thriving down south…"

INC.com - Claris Networks has been recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in the country for the past three years.

MSPmentor.net - Claris Networks’ Dave Sagraves, Chad Quesenberry, and Bill Piper were honored as three of the industry’s 250 most influential professionals. This marks the company’s second year with multiple employees featured on the list. The MSPmentor 250 is an “annual look at the executives, entrepreneurs, experts, coaches and community leaders shaping the global managed services market,” according to the website. Sagraves and Quesenberry appear for their second consecutive year.