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EDITOR’S QUESTION
GRANT BENNETT, COUNTRY MANAGER
FOR SUSE SOUTH AFRICA AND SUB-
SAHARAN AFRICA
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T
he infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS)
market is predicted to reach
US$72.4 billion worldwide by 2020
– an indication that the digital migration
of service has been accepted around the
world as businesses move to meet the digital
demands of the digital economy.
Moving the business to a good IaaS
provider is much like moving to an upmarket
office park. From fine architecture, good
housekeeping, security, convenience and a
modern pace, the business is positioned in
the right place for success.
Likewise, IaaS offers virtual compute,
storage and network capabilities without
the burden of owning and maintaining
infrastructure. So, where does the challenge
lie? Finding the right agent, or in this case,
the right IaaS partner.
While there are so many options in the
vendor scenario, finding the perfect fit
requires a business to look at the following:
• Infrastructure: Whether the business
is looking to IaaS for the purpose of
reducing infrastructure ownership costs,
or for temporary and experimental
workloads, a good IaaS provider should
have a robust managed cloud solution
that is run on a secure platform
• Cost: Though the obvious benefit
of opting for an IaaS model is lower
infrastructure cost, it is also important to
understand the pricing model and how to
control usage. Additionally, opting for the
most cost-effective option may not be
cost effective in the long-term, so look for
costing options the work for the business
• A good fit: Where possible, a provider’s
technology should fit the business’s
existing operations with little or
no disruption while facilitating the
business’s need to leverage on compute
recourses on demand. This rollout should
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also plan for how to retire or repurpose
existing infrastructure so that all assets
can be sweat properly and not just
ripped and replaced
• Open: As technologies continue to
evolve at pace, businesses need to look
to partners that keep business open
to innovation, open to change and
in essence, open to new technologies
by not being locked in with a specific
vendor. OpenStack Cloud, for example,
provides an easy to deploy and manage
heterogeneous cloud infrastructure for
provisioning development, test and
production workloads in a way that is
supportable, compliant and secure
Businesses have realised that IaaS
efficiency benefits are too good to pass up
on as it fundamentally revolutionises the
way they purchase, manage and deploy
IT infrastructure.
In fact, according the Cloud Africa 2018
report, there has been an increase in cloud
spending among South African businesses
where 74% of them are realising the need
and the importance of IaaS to perform
in an agile market but choosing the right
provider that is able to align the business’s
present and future needs with vendor
offerings will be critical to reaping the
benefits IaaS has to offer.
INTELLIGENTCIO
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