FEATURE: CLOUD SOLUTIONS
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
THE TECHNOLOGY IS THERE TO
ENABLE COMPANIES TO PROTECT
THEIR DATA AND MAKE IT MORE
AVAILABLE WHILE LOWERING THEIR
OPERATIONAL COSTS.
the ability to make informed decisions. For
companies investing in these innovations,
it is therefore essential to embrace a cloud
approach that delivers data in secure and
effective ways. This presents decision-makers with more
affordable options where they keep the
Capex in the bank and only pay for the
required services when they are
consuming them.
As-a-service Using as-a-service, infrastructure costs are
no longer a concern with cloud providers
offering consumption-based pricing
models with companies only paying for
the resources they use. This fundamentally
different approach makes these services
more accessible to a range of organisations.
So, not only is multi-cloud growing locally,
the adoption of as-a-service offerings are
as well.
This pressure for availability has given rise
to the importance of Backup-as-a-Service,
Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service, Software-as-
a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service offerings.
Traditionally, business continuity was
focused on having a replica of a production
site with similar data at an alternative
location. Given that it virtually doubled
capex, the advent of the cloud resulted in
these more effective alternatives
becoming available.
The technology is there to enable companies
to protect their data and make it more
available while lowering their operational
A new South
African cloud
market emerging
Thanks to the arrival of Microsoft Azure data centres in South
Africa, it is expected that more born-in-the-cloud organisations
will start taking root here. And with smaller companies now
finding it easier to migrate to an online environment, Dana
Cinman, Product Specialist at Obsidian Systems, says these are
exciting times for solutions providers.
36
INTELLIGENTCIO
costs. This is seeing South Africa well on
its way to becoming a cloud-first market
as more businesses are changing their
methodologies for this new environment.
Of course, being cloud-first does not mean a
business must be cloud-only.
If workloads are too expensive to migrate
to a cloud environment, or the latency or
application dependency doesn’t fit the
workload, then those workloads should
remain on-premise for the time being, or
until the system is designed to be more
‘cloud friendly’.
Going the cloud route is about enabling
business acceleration to ensure that the
customer experience is enhanced, while
managing cash flow or to provide better
service than what was previously possible.
For the workloads better suited to going the
cloud route, companies now have many
cloud service providers to choose from.
Given how budgets are still being pushed
for maximum efficiency, organisations are
scrutinising how best to keep their data
available and their budgets intact. The multi-
cloud route does offer an ecosystem capable
of delivering round the clock availability. It is
now up to the businesses themselves to start
making the transition. n
P
reviously, businesses were mainly
moving their non-critical applications
to Azure given the regulatory
restrictions around what data could be
stored outside the country. Now, information
can be stored locally, nullifying the
restrictions around the Protection of Personal
Information Act. Furthermore, the problem
of latency has also been solved thanks to
fast local connectivity.
Given that smaller companies have
fewer legacy systems and less data to be
moved via the Internet or virtual private
networks, they have an advantage over
large enterprises.
Even so, the biggest factor in driving cloud
services is the ability to democratise IT
services on a pay-as-you-use basis.
www.intelligentcio.com