EDITOR’S QUESTION
little or no disruption while facilitating
the business’s need to leverage on
compute recourses on demand. This
rollout should 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.
GRANT BENNETT, COUNTRY
MANAGER FOR SUSE SOUTH AFRICA
AND SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
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.
T
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.
30
Issue 08
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
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 to 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.
MOVING THE
BUSINESS TO
A GOOD IAAS
PROVIDER IS
MUCH LIKE
MOVING TO AN
UPMARKET
OFFICE PARK.
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