Cloud solutions require a consultative approach

With the growth of IT, smart devices and the Internet of Everything, the systems and the data centre environments that support them are becoming increasingly diverse.

Today, organisations can choose their own ‘data centre ecosystem’ which may include on-premise data centres, co-location facilities, hosted or managed services, or the endless cloud options available such as private, public, community or hybrid. The trend towards an outsourced model is validated by IDC, which believes cloud services and data centre services will grow by 24% and 14% respectively year-on-year.

For organisations looking for solutions that are mapped to their individual IT applications and business processes, the question is, “How can I best deliver this application to my business?” We call this application-dependent data centre architecture.

Whether the application is email, web services, CRM, ERP, supply chain management or any other business process, organisations should consider each application against criteria such as security, sovereignty, latency, criticality, financial and political to establish the best means to deliver this service.

When weighing up the benefits of integrating different types of data centre architectures, all the risks involved need to be considered. For example, the various IT ecosystems specific to verticals such as finance or telecommunications often need to keep their critical data in a location close to their premises. However, those looking to host their cloud services offshore also need to evaluate how Australian Privacy Principles could affect their operations.

The different types of ‘clouds’ available offer their own advantages. With the public cloud, the services provider owns the entire physical infrastructure and software. Businesses purchasing access to these resources are billed only for time, bandwidth and storage used. This model is often integrated when organisations are not constrained by security or data sovereignty concerns.

In comparison, private cloud allows businesses to host resources in a dedicated, virtualised environment. While this addresses the risks associated with multiple users and shared resources, it does require a substantial initial investment and subsequent capital expansion as additional capacity is needed, and does not provide for short-term bursts of growth.

To help businesses realise their cloud needs, there is a hybrid solution that uses a secure, private network to connect services and servers or private clouds within the corporate network to more flexible resources within the cloud. This way, the user realises the low-cost adaptability of cloud computing with the security of its own servers, all through a single management interface.

It can be difficult to decide which option is best. Those who wish to implement cloud services are best served by employing vendors who are focused on consultative solutions over those who simply deal in components. However, organisations should also have a clear-cut plan that assesses their data ecosystems and performance.

*Adam Wilkinson has 18 years of experience in the IT industry with leading system integrators, distributors and vendors, including 10 years with the Schneider Electric IT Business (formerly APC) in Australia.