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CLOUD COMPUTING
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By Joao Crespo , Programme Director , Teradata
www . teradata . co . uk
As cloud has become a standard way of doing business , organisations globally are utilising it as a tool for innovation and business transformation . Those who successfully use the cloud to achieve growth will have a mature , strategic view of how best to implement and integrate it across their organisations . All approaches to cloud have advantages . From the straightforward simplicity of public cloud services , versus the increased security and control of a private cloud , there is a cloud environment to meet every organisation ’ s needs . A hybrid cloud approach in which public or private clouds , or a combination of the two , are fully integrated with traditional on-premises IT and centrally managed through a single platform is becoming increasingly popular . Indeed , as cloud strategies mature and the business
benefits of implementing cloud throughout the organisation become clear , hybrid cloud has emerged as the consensus choice to support business growth . Nearly half of enterprises already use some form of hybrid cloud and 72 % of enterprises are expected to pursue a hybrid strategy . Hybrid cloud solutions make it easy to deploy new business models and technologies like cognitive analytics , which have the power to transform businesses .
Managed cloud As part of a wider hybrid cloud strategy , managed cloud allows organisations to utilise cloud computing without having to employ an expert in every area . Companies that use managed cloud can focus on their core business rather than having to divert their cash reserves employing large teams of IT experts , technical engineers , system administrators and other experts to manage their IT .
A managed cloud provider will offer its customers a range of expertise as well as large economies of scale as the provider ’ s engineers manage not only the customers ’ computing , storage , networks , and operating systems , but also the complex tools and application stacks that run on top of that infrastructure . These can include the latest databases and e-commerce platforms , as well as automation tools . Managed cloud allows each individual customer to choose which IT functions it wishes to manage in-house , leaving all the rest to its chosen service provider .
Whether an organisation is deploying in the cloud , on-premises , or both , designing architecture to meet their application requirements can be a time-intensive activity requiring regular reviews and updates as the business grows and its needs change . With cloud providers regularly evolving their platforms , it ’ s important to continually re-architect to best take advantage of new features and services . This may require significant investment in organisational resources in finding , hiring and retaining certified architects .
By partnering with a managed cloud provider , specialists can work with organisations to design and tailor an architecture specific to a customer ’ s application needs . The provider will also update an organisational architecture on an ongoing basis as its requirements evolve , and as new features and cloud services become available . The provider should be able to offer services across a broad range of technologies and deployment models — including dedicated hosting , private cloud platforms like OpenStack and leading public clouds like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure . The combination of choice and expertise mean that the provider will deliver an architecture designed to meet an organisation ’ s application specific performance , availability and scalability requirements while eliminating the need for them to retain costly architects in-house .
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