Solution Provider Exec Says Now is the Time to Develop a
Cloud Strategy
Farmington Hills,
MI, February 1, 2012 – Everyone has heard the many
promises of the cloud and its game-changing, business-building
advantages. While most CIOs today would agree that the
cloud, in one form or another, will be a part of their
technological future, they are still hesitant when it comes to an
adoption strategy in some of the areas where rewards can be
greatest. While most IT managers certainly recognize the
pros, they also see the cons, and very few concrete answers for
resolving those cons have been presented to date. That’s why
Logicalis, an international IT solution provider (http://www.us.logicalis.com/),
has put together four of the top reasons IT pros should embrace the
cloud, the potential downsides, and what can be done to mitigate
risk in each of those scenarios.
“Moving data to the cloud can be a
cost-effective path to better application platforms, higher data
accessibility and faster data processing,” says Terry Flood,
president and CEO of Logicalis. “But to avoid pitfalls like
network latency, synchronization and security, CIOs need to arm
themselves with the best cloud partners and the right tools to
create the kind of solution that is tailored for their specific
organization.”
Pros, Cons & Risk
Reducers for CIOs Using the Cloud
- True Data Accessibility: With the buzz about
BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) in the workplace today, it only stands
to reason that data must become more accessible, and the cloud is a
perfect way to tie together a host of disparate devices without the
headache of supporting each one independently. However, this
can leave the organization’s data exposed – it’s out there in the
cloud and available via a wide range of devices, which forces IT
pros to consider data breaches and losses they previously didn’t
even dare to imagine. The key to resolving this is in
deciding what data to make available on multiple devices, moving
only certain data sets into the cloud in the first place.
And, of equal importance, IT pros will have to choose their cloud
provider partners more carefully than ever before. Some of
the larger public cloud providers, for example, have only just
begun to implement firewalls in front of customers’ data. So
what if a customer requires multiple firewalls or other security
features to safely keep its private information out of the public
eye? There are public cloud providers with these features in
place today; the key is in asking the right questions and choosing
a partner wisely from the start.
- More Powerful Platforms: Moving to the cloud
means access to the highest quality platforms – things like
orchestration, Platform as a Service (PaaS), and common services –
often at a fraction of the cost of procuring them independently,
since the cost is shared by many. These platforms allow
developers and testers to focus on value-added work rather than
struggling with setting up environments. The problem IT pros have
with running applications in the cloud is the possibility for
latency or performance issues when large data sets are forced to
squeeze through a too-slow pipeline. There are solutions, though,
such as using virtual desktops in the cloud. The key to
avoiding latency issues when running applications in the cloud is
to keep the applications and data as close to each other as
possible – which likely means side-by-side in the cloud
itself. Secondly, IT experts are concerned that their
existing applications either won’t fit into PaaS solutions or can’t
be deployed through orchestration. But these are ideas that
need a second look. When deploying an application to the cloud,
there are now a wide range of options from orchestration tools to
create and configure exact application blueprints automatically to
PaaS systems that will run standard Java or .NET applications with
only minor modifications.
- The Freshness Factor: How fresh is data that
resides in the cloud? Sounds more like a grocery store
question than a technology one. But it’s an important
consideration for IT pros as they move their data to the
cloud. There’s a big difference between viewing
end-of-the-month data in the cloud and accessing live point-of-sale
data in the cloud seconds after it was entered. This is one
reason some CIOs have shied away from the cloud – the need for
instant availability of data, particularly in real-time situations
– can make a move to the cloud seem impossible. The truth is,
the cloud can handle scenarios where freshness of the data is an
absolute requirement, but special steps need to be taken to ensure
that data is there when it is needed. One promising way to
ensure that freshness is using a NoSQL database with an in-memory
data grid to keep all the data that has to remain fresh in
memory. In the case of multiple data sites reporting to the
cloud, a remote mirroring system may need to be implemented to
securely synch data on the fly. These kinds of solutions are
already being used successfully by the military for battlefield
logistics as well as by banks and traders for near-instantaneous
transactions, but they have far more widespread uses that will soon
be discovered and employed as CIOs begin to explore options such as
these to ensure data freshness – even in critical-use situations –
in the cloud.
- Data Crunching Horsepower: When it comes to
using applications on large data sets, the more robust the
hardware, the better. This is a clear advantage that the
cloud has to offer. When CIOs are tasked with determining
in-house capacity, they are often forced to over-design their
systems to meet the peak demands of a few specific
applications. Moving to the cloud allows companies to tap the
additional computing horsepower they need when they need it, and
not pay for it when they don’t. The problem CIOs worry about
is that, at the virtualization layer, their machines may not be
able to handle the workload associated with processing these
incredible amounts of data. A solution, however, lies
in utilizing the elastic computing power of the cloud and
leveraging monitoring tools and infrastructure that can respond on
the fly to increased workloads by increasing capacity.
Furthermore, large batch jobs can be sped up by splitting the job
into many smaller parts and completing the workload significantly
faster.
- To learn more about cloud
computing, visit Logicalis’ dedicated cloud Web site here.
- On the fencepost? Read Logicalis’
feature article “Cloud
Computing 2.0.”
About Logicalis
Logicalis is an international IT solutions and
managed services provider with a breadth of knowledge and expertise
in communications and collaboration; data center and cloud
services; and managed services.
Logicalis Group employs over 2,500 people
worldwide, including highly trained service specialists who design,
specify, deploy and manage complex ICT infrastructures to meet the
needs of over 6,000 corporate and public sector customers. To
achieve this, Logicalis maintains strong partnerships with
technology leaders such as Cisco, HP, IBM and Microsoft.
The Logicalis Group has annualized revenues of
over $1 billion, from operations in the UK, US, Germany, South
America and Asia Pacific, and is fast establishing itself as one of
the leading IT and Communications solution integrators,
specializing in the areas of advanced technologies and
services.
The Logicalis Group is a division of Datatec
Limited, listed on the Johannesburg and London AIM Stock Exchanges,
with revenues of approximately $5 billion.
For more information, visit http://www.us.logicalis.com/.