The awards, presented at the Parallels Summit 2012 APAC last week, recognise Parallels partners "that have achieved notable growth, shown innovative strategies and optimized their business for future success in the Asia Pacific cloud market through the use of Parallels products, solutions and ecosystem."

Leading the Aussie charge was iiNet, which was named APAC Partner of the Year. The company is one of the top partners globally, Parallels officials said.

"Consolidating our business on Parallels Automation has enabled iiNet to grow our footprint in offering various productivity-driven hosting services for SMBs in Australia," said Kevin Clark, hosting manager at iiNet.

"This award is a great recognition and truly reflects our efforts to take advantage of the growing cloud opportunity," he added.

Telstra received the Excellence in Innovation award for the innovative design and enhancements the company has made with Parallels Automation.

"Parallels Business Automation has enabled effortless integration into various Telstra systems including identity management, customer relationship management and finance," said Kevin Kennedy, director, cloud engineering at Telstra.

Also recognised were India-based data centre operator CtrlS (New Partner of the Year) and Japan-based virtual infrastructure provider Otsuka Corporation (aOutstanding Solution for the SMB).

David Dzienciol, Parallels regional vice president and general manager in Asia Pacific said "The Parallels Asia Pacific Partner Awards 2012 recognise the commitment of hosters and service providers to the proliferating cloud enablement in the region.

"The four winners have achieved significant milestones in the past year and are positioned for continued momentum to launch new and innovative cloud services that can increase their own customers' sales, revenue and profitability."