EDITOR’S QUESTION
OSAMA AL-ZOUBI, CHIEF
TECHNOLOGY OFFICER (CTO),
CISCO MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
aaS, or Infrastructure
as a Service, is the
virtualisation of
an organisation’s
infrastructure into the
cloud. Contrary to the
other types of cloud service trends such
as SaaS and PaaS, the IaaS architecture is
unique, allowing a cloud provider to host
the infrastructure traditionally present
in an on-premise data centre, including
servers, storage and networking hardware.
I
IaaS providers often also cover ongoing
systems maintenance, data backup and
business continuity. In addition to being
highly scalable, flexible and secure, IaaS
appeals to many businesses because it
is accessible by multiple users and is
cost-effective.
Cisco offers best-in-class, flexible and
scalable cloud services for IaaS to help
www.intelligentdatacentres.com
businesses benefit from superior levels
of service and security. According to
Cisco’s Global Cloud Index, by 2021, IaaS
will continue to gain public cloud share
of workloads and compute instances.
However, in practical terms – installing an
IaaS solution is not as simple as it sounds.
Organisations looking to become more
agile will require a trustworthy IaaS
partner that maintains the same levels of
compliance, privacy and security when
storing customer data. And with the
large pool of vendors to choose from,
enterprises can get confused which would
best suit their business needs.
At Cisco, we advise businesses to consider
the following points when determining
which vendor to work with:
1. Reliability and stability:
Organisations are encouraged to look for
ORGANISATIONS
LOOKING TO
BECOME MORE
AGILE WILL
REQUIRE A
TRUSTWORTHY
IAAS PARTNER
THAT MAINTAINS
THE SAME LEVELS
OF COMPLIANCE,
PRIVACY AND
SECURITY
WHEN STORING
CUSTOMER DATA.
single-source providers that manage the
organisation’s infrastructure holistically;
this way, the organisation can place its
energy and focus on the core needs of
the business.
2. Avoiding vendor lock-in: As
business needs change, so will the
choices the organisation will have to
make. Organisations should identify
how easy (or how difficult) it would be
to move data and applications to an
alternative provider if they are faced
with a change in cost, service level
agreements or conditions as a business.
3. Support: The support provided by
an IaaS partner is all based on a trust
relationship between the two. Before
deciding and committing, the questions
an organisation should ask itself are:
How reliable is this IaaS partner? Will
I receive monitoring, service, and
support around the clock? Can they be
held accountable and trusted?
Issue 08
31