• Press Office

The forecast is cloudy with strong winds

By Wayne Dick, Business Development Consultant, Shoden Data Systems, July 2011

Cloud Computing is truly one of the hottest topics within the IT industry today. One only needs to Google the term “cloud” to find that its association to computing now ranks far superior to a term which was previously associated to atmospheric conditions. Fan away some of the layers and the underlying cloud packaging is made up of consolidated, virtualised, hosted, capacity on demand stuff.  These are elements which one could argue many organisations already have some or all of in place already.

Considering this, are there real benefits for business and end users or is this merely new packaging from vendors for selling software? These include (SaaS - Software as a Service / Paas – Platform as a Service) or hardware (IaaS-Infrastructure as a Service)? And if you so wish, in your own private, public or hybrid cloud.

Looking at Internet and Social Media Services, such as Facebook, DropBox and Linked-In and the multitude of mobile applications cloud based solutions demonstrate the ease and flexibility which such services can offer business and end users. Combine this with the added promise of applications, servers, networks, security and data being managed through a co-hosted or dedicated environment without the constant headache of end of life application or infrastructure migrations, disaster recovery and escalating datacentre costs and concerns, and it seems like you have a favourable weather forecast for all.  

An example of a quick win Cloud candidate is applications which are already dependent on internet access and therefore already dependant on external (cloud) services, such as an email service. However, the dependencies and performance requirements between applications, in this case which other application shares your email data will decide how you proceed forward. Legacy applications which require scarce or costly skills may force an upgrade or should remain in-house. SLA’s need to be closely reviewed, especially related to availability, data protection and termination penalties by either party. As with all things sounding too good to be true, treading forwards with caution is always a good thing.

About Shoden

Shoden Data Systems PTY (Ltd.) provides innovative, high-end technology solutions to leading organisations across Africa, allowing them to gain what Shoden refers to as:“The data centre advantage”. Shoden aims to deliver the data centre advantage by understanding clients’ challenges and implementing optimised solutions that address these challenges, coupled with excellent service and support. www.shoden.co.za

For further information

Melinda de Gee
Shoden Data Systems
083 212 9840
Melinda.degee@shoden.co.za