Making the most of the cloud

BANGALORE, INDIA: The word ‘cloud’ means a lot of different things to different people. It is often seen solely as a method businesses use to rent computing resources.

However, the cloud is much more complex and offers a wealth of options for businesses. In particular, what many firms are doing now is running certain applications that they need controlling within their private infrastructure.

This can be based on hardware in a dedicated data centre. However, alongside this, they are also running applications on a shared infrastructure through cloud platforms.

Teething problems are minimised when companies assess and review their connectivity requirements properly. Whereas, you might have previously been accessing a server that is in the computer room on your own premises across a local area network (LAN), you are now accessing applications across a wide area network (WAN) and so the connectivity has to be provisioned accordingly. You should also have the right power for the service and level of availability.

There are some businesses that move applications to the cloud but they have not received the full details about what exactly that entails. Where is the data? Where are the applications running from? A prudent IT manager will assess how the infrastructure is built, where it is, and whether it meets the requirements in terms of security and performance.

Connectivity is fundamental to how that application is going to perform. It is not just about the server it is running on, it is how you connect to it that is critical. To avoid any complications arising, you need a trusted advisor to identify the various components of using a cloud service.

The planning and assessment phase is extremely important. Pay due diligence here and you will have a cloud service that pays dividends in every sense.

Leading cloud platforms will enable you to monitor and measure utilisation levels and make sure you have enough resource assigned to each task. If you are monitoring these aspects, you can identify where there might be performance peaks and you can address by adding new resources.

And that is one of the benefits of the cloud: if you do need resources in terms of additional processing power and additional memory, you can assign that resource dynamically on the fly. You do not physically have to buy more memory and install it on the server. If the cloud infrastructure’s right, this level of flexibility is available to you.

Within all areas of the IT sector, there must be a partnership approach where both parties work together to deliver an excellent service. Of central importance to this partnership is a service provider that understands the business and what the future plans are for growth. But there should be a proactive approach from both sides to ensure the service functions impeccably.