Telehouse for Technophiles: Ahead in the Clouds

Cloud Migration Is Critical to Enterprise IT Agility

According to a study by IDG, enterprises are predicted to invest an average of $2.87 million in Cloud computing technologies this year, nearly a quarter of their total IT budgets.

Many of the reasons cited for enterprises’ migration to the Cloud revolve around increasing a company’s agility and the ability to get Cloud-based applications, such as Salesforce, Microsoft Office 365 and Cisco WebEx, up and running quickly and affordably. In fact, 84 percent of CIOs report that they have cut application costs by moving to the Cloud, while nearly half of enterprises are moving to the Cloud to replace on-premise, legacy technology, and 43 percent for reasons of lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

Sunny, with a 100% Chance of Productivity and Savings                                                                                                    

Other statistics surrounding the growth of enterprise Cloud migration are equally telling:

• Nearly 80 percent of senior financial services executives say that the Cloud is crucial to their organizations’ strategies
• The most common application areas in enterprise Cloud migration initiatives are HR, Sales and Marketing
• Almost half of Cloud budgets are allocated to SaaS-based applications
• Companies that use the Cloud tend to spend 25 percent less on personnel

Even with the massive growth in migration to Cloud infrastructure, there are still a few holdouts that point to issues such as security, integration with existing IT infrastructure, and information governance — especially in heavily-regulated industries, such as healthcare and financial services — as presenting obstacles to Cloud adoption.

To be certain, there are various types of Cloud services — Public, Private and Hybrid — each of which have their unique advantages and disadvantages with respect to mode of operation, efficiencies and return on investment. So how do IT executives determine which among the various forms of Cloud infrastructure is right for their businesses?

Unlike a meteorologist, whose ability to predict whether partly cloudy means to expect drizzly or sunny skies is often challenged, with a little information you can indeed accurately assess which Cloud infrastructure is appropriate for your organization, now and into the future. That’s because Cloud services fall under three simple categories.

Public Cloud

Public Cloud consists of a service or set of services purchased usually on a monthly recurring basis and delivered via the internet from a specific provider. The services run on server, storage and data center infrastructure that is not exclusive to the user, but is shared infrastructure.

In selecting the Public Cloud option, a company offloads much of the responsibility of managing the infrastructure to the Cloud vendor, significantly reducing personnel costs and capital expenditures of the business.

Private Cloud

Some of the concerns about Cloud migration from an enterprise perspective include security, and legal and regulatory compliance, as well as data loss. Further, many organizations are concerned about non-secure interfaces to SaaS applications and Cloud deployments. Additionally, external sharing of sensitive data is cited as an issue for would-be Cloud adopters. A Private Cloud is infrastructure in a data center that is entirely dedicated to an individual business and allays security concerns about protecting a company’s data.

Generally speaking, the use of Private Cloud services delivers all of the agility, scalability and operational costs savings of Public Cloud, but with the added benefits of greater levels of security and control. Meaning, the business can customize compute, network and storage resources to optimize their IT requirements. Although typically costing more than Public Cloud, and with a higher upfront capital expense because infrastructure is not shared, the savings of the Private Cloud still outweigh the costs of an on-premise, in-house data center.

Hybrid Cloud and Cloud Bursting for a Rainy Day

In a Hybrid Cloud environment, enterprises receive the best of both worlds. An organization can use the Public Cloud for non-mission critical operations and the Private Cloud for more sensitive data and operations. Additionally, the Hybrid Cloud enables “Cloud bursting.” The term describes a situation in which there is a surge of data and the application scales from the Private to the Public Cloud, with Public Cloud resources used to accomplish the scalability. The Hybrid option typically provides the best cost-performance and agility for a business.

Fair and Warm, Ceiling and Visibility Unlimited

While many of the world’s largest Cloud providers are established in Telehouse facilities, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud and Google Cloud Platform, Telehouse also delivers enterprise-grade Private and Hybrid Cloud hosting services. Our Cloud Services are supported by US-based technical engineers providing 24/7/365 management and support, and our implementation team delivers the necessary project management for a smooth transition to the Cloud, including architecture and deployment framework designed to make your Cloud hosting service a successful investment.

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