Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 76 | Page 31

TALKING

‘‘ business

wWhat are key motivators driving organisations ’ decisions to shift to the cloud ?

• Cloud computing is simple and cost-effective . Scaling up using on-premises infrastructure is an expensive affair . It requires additional investment in hardware , network equipment , software licenses and in-house technicians . When you factor in maintenance installation costs , these expenses go through the roof . When you move to the cloud , you can eliminate the investment you make in redundant infrastructure . Although cloud computing involves initial setup costs and training , you can achieve economies of scale at a much faster rate compared to on-premises infrastructure . Cost-effectiveness is one of the major reasons businesses across the globe are choosing the cloud over traditional systems .
• The cloud is flexible and scalable . One of the major benefits of using the cloud is its scalability . Cloud services can scale up or down very easily based on user requirements . If you use only onpremises infrastructure , you need to invest heavily in physical servers , networking equipment and software licenses to scale up your growing business .
• The cloud offers better insights from big data . Businesses generate huge volumes of both structured and unstructured data on an everyday basis , collectively known as big data . Deriving valuable insights from big data requires cost-effective ways of information processing . On-premises storage systems may not be able to keep up with high-volume data generation in the long run . Even if you try to do everything the traditional way , you need substantial investment in your infrastructure to make this happen .
• The cloud drives collaboration efficiency . Cloud computing can also enable great efficiency in the work processes of various organizations . Cloud technology allows collaboration on a much larger scale among employees within an organization . It allows multiple users from different departments or geographic locations to access the required information .
• The cloud ensures business continuity and disaster recovery . The cloud has dramatically changed how businesses store and retrieve data . This especially comes in handy when businesses need to recover quickly following an unforeseen disaster . Cloud backup helps businesses recover their data quickly so they can continue their operations without any downtime .
Why are organisations today increasingly looking at public clouds as a key enabler for executing on their enterprise data warehouse ( EDW ) modernisation strategy ?
In today ’ s world , enterprise data warehouses are a critical component of any organization ’ s technology ecosystem . They provide the backbone for a range of use cases such as business intelligence ( BI ) reporting , dashboarding , and machine-learning ( ML ) -based predictive analytics , that enable faster decision making and insights .
The rise of cloud has allowed data warehouses to provide new capabilities such as cost-effective data storage at petabyte scale , highly scalable compute and storage , pay-as-you-go pricing and fully managed service delivery . Companies are shifting their investments to cloud software and reducing their spend on legacy infrastructure .
How can enterprises accelerate time-tovalue through end-to-end management of transactional , operational and analytical data across any cloud ?
Cloud-based data warehouse solutions can offer faster , easier scalability than on-premises environments . You can start with a short-term proof of concept and then scale up to match the requirements of the project when it goes live .
What are the current pain points of organisations efficiently storing and operationalising their data ?
• Integration . Consolidating data from disparate sources into a single system is one of the greatest challenges all organisations grapple with .
Vincent Gaorekwe , CTO at BITanium
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