OpinionsSecurity Compliance

Telecoms and cloud computing: A perfect match

By Charles Kennaway, Cable&Wireless Worldwide 04-Oct-2011

Charles Kennaway, VP, Enterprise Sales, APAC, Cable&Wireless Worldwide
While "Cloud" might be an overused word to describe what is effectively a natural evolution in terms of how existing technology is leveraged, businesses need to do more to harness the opportunity it provides.

After all the hype, cloud computing is now really beginning to get traction, and not just in the smaller enterprises; a recent global survey by Ovum of more than 100 multinational corporations found a 60% increase in the uptake of cloud services among large organizations over the last year. The strongest showing is in Asia, which boasts an uptake of at least 63%.
 
The survey also shows that enterprises have already moved significant resources to the cloud and are ready to move more application services. The dominant areas of cloud services uptake are in data backup and storage, at 51% of respondents, with an additional 33% reporting their intention to procure cloud data backup and storage services in the next 24 months. 
 
The Ovum survey also found that telecommunications providers are emerging as trusted partners for cloud computing. A year ago 37% of enterprise users rated telecommunications providers as credible suppliers, but this has increased to 49% in 2011. This is attributed to their capabilities in both managed hosting and managed networks.

Robust communications layer

This trend is occurring as, fundamentally, all cloud services need to be positioned on a strong network platform. Without this communications layer, cloud computing cannot take place. Although cloud computing providers do provide this kind of network, telecommunications providers are extremely well-positioned to provide a very robust communications layer.

"[C]loud computing has been looked on as the ultimate managed service and telecoms providers have been in the managed service market for a long time."

 

-- Charles Kennaway, Cable&Wireless Worldwide


Major telecommunications providers have the expertise in combining their network with managing data centers and they can use this expertise in building competitive advantage as compared to other players.

They will be able to provide the essential bandwidth required, plus they already have the necessary experience at hand when it comes to delivering infrastructure. It is simply a matter of extending their core competencies into the cloud space.

However, 58% of respondents in the same Ovum survey noted that security remains the largest barrier to the adoption of cloud computing with 69% of respondents stating that the use of the public Internet was a significant or major barrier to uptake. Financial services companies and manufacturers were most likely to cite security as a critical barrier that hinders them from moving into the cloud.

The best way to secure the cloud computing environment, and to ensure application performance, is to make sure that the prime access routes are via the organization’s own internal network (Wide Area Network), not the Internet.

By placing services in a secure cloud environment within the WAN, and using the established methods of data separation, data becomes intrinsically safer, and performance is not only better, but can also be managed by advanced application performance management networking tools.

Therefore, in order for cloud services to really penetrate the enterprise market, robust and secure hosting environments need to be combined with resilient, high performing and secure next-generation networks, and both need to be ensured with stringent service level agreements. 

Telecommunications providers already have these issues covered: the all-important security question, the expertise, the facilities and the infrastructure in place for providing hosted services. Moreover, cloud computing has been looked on as the ultimate managed service and telecommunications providers have been in the managed service market for a long time.

The future of IT holds one thing for certain, growth will come from those businesses that are prepared to innovate and make bold decisions with the courage to move to the cloud, and telecommunications providers are the perfect match to capitalize on this opportunity.


Charles Kennaway is vice president, enterprise sales, APAC, Cable&Wireless Worldwide





Tags:
Cable & Wireless Worldwide, Ovum




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Comments

Submitted by goughy (not verified) on 05-Oct-2011.
I agree, I have spent to much time with executives who want to "think about the future" but fundamentally Charles, the era of total accountability where as consumers, we are better able to assess the efficiency of products and services because of our access to real time information is right now, upon us. Whilst this means good news for consumers it seriously raises the bar for providers...carriers included. There will be "zero tolerance" for digital failure, can carriers provide this? In the new world, "Good enough" beats perfect, Gmail v Exchange, Skype v Telephone etc Companies need to abandon total control and this means companies need to shift their thinking from Build it, or buy it, (and associated management costs) to compose it in a multi tennant fashion, but alas, as they say, "we learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience" ! it will take a while before the CIO lets go of his banana and allows 80% of his budget for innovation as opposed to keeping the lights on.
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