Is my business fit for managed cloud services?

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The “Cloud” is a new and disruptive trend that has been gaining momentum in businesses for some time. With many businesses unsure how cloud computing and cloud services can fit into their business strategy. Managed Cloud Services may sound like a complex concept; however, it is simply storing your data offsite in a data centre or a private cloud.

Benefits of the Cloud

Businesses who make the shift to cloud software often do so for many different reasons. The most common include flexibility, scalability, cost savings, as well as the uses of cloud services such as data backups, disaster recovery, and so forth.

Managed cloud services are not limited to small businesses or start-ups, and are beneficial for companies of all sizes. Many businesses will often associate managed IT services as unaffordable and unnecessary. However, managed cloud services are affordable, easy to deploy and simple for businesses to manage.

Evaluating your business needs

Before obtaining managed cloud services, you need to evaluate your business from a strategic and operational perspective. Does your IT demand fluctuate throughout the year? Do your IT costs negatively impact on your ability to grow your business? If your answer is yes, making the move to managed cloud services may be in your best interest.

Businesses will typically choose a cloud service from three distinct types of models: private cloud, public cloud, and hybrid cloud. Unlike a public cloud, private and hybrid clouds require businesses to maintain, manage and update their data centres through dedicated administrators. Often the cost and ability to execute these tasks are not in the best interests of the business; this is where managed cloud service providers step in.

What cloud service is best for you?

Each business is unique, their size, business objectives, industry and IT software; therefore, every business deserves a customised service. With a variety of cloud packages available, you can choose which services and features are best for you, your budget and strategic needs.

Co-location providers

Co-location services provide businesses with an opportunity to install their own servers in a managed facility. The location provider then has the responsibility of keeping the servers on and maintained. However, the responsibility of physically maintaining the servers rests with the owner of the server (i.e. the business).

The next step up – Managed Co-location

Providers have begun to offer managed co-location services, where businesses can buy a server from the provider, who then oversee the installation and ongoing management. Using this framework allows businesses to reduce operational overheads as well as take advantage of the increased resilience of off-site systems.

Experience more freedom – Managed Apps and IaaS

The next service in the managed cloud includes full hosted and managed applications in the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. This also includes large platforms such as Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure, allowing businesses to move key applications to the Cloud.

The support, management and maintenance of their cloud infrastructure is the responsibility of the service provider; everything else is left to the business to handle.

The Saving Grace of Cloud Services – Fully Managed Cloud

Fully managed cloud services allow you to hand over the management and stress of the entire platform, as well as all of its parts to a third party (that’s us!). Here at eStorm, we take the time to understand your business’ IT needs and identify and deploy new services that help you reach your goals.

Why we recommend Managed Cloud Services

Including managed cloud services into your business strategy, your business will experience the following benefits:

Cost Saving

Managed cloud services can help you control and reduce your costly IT maintenance costs. Maintaining an in-house IT department is expensive and is often unnecessary for businesses with simple networks. Making the switch to a managed cloud service provider means you decide how much you are willing to pay for IT services and have a consistent monthly bill.

Future-proofed technology

Migrating your data to a secure cloud is the first step in setting up your business for success in the future. The friendly technicians at eStorm are always prepared with the newest technology. We are by your side when new technology comes on the market, or a required update is released, supporting you every step of the way.

Custom and integrated service

At eStorm, we understand each business is unique and requires a custom cloud solution for a seamless transition and minimal downtime. To accommodate this, we offer a variety of services to unlock your business potential, including, private and hybrid cloud, Microsoft Office 365, Sharepoint, Amazon Web Services and many more. View our full list of services, here.

If you are unsure if your business is ready to make the transition to the Cloud, book an appointment with the friendly team at eStorm Australia today.

The 3 keys to high performance & cost savings with IT

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Efficiency. It’s that ever illustrious goal that every IT professional and leader endeavours toward. But, even with maximum effort and precision planning, efforts in the pursuit of ultimate efficiency can fail to hit their intended targets.

According to Kumar Krishnamurthy, a principal with PwC’s Strategy Consulting Group, we must move our focus toward improving effectiveness and the experience for the user.

Focusing on the needs of the business, not just technology

Merim Becirovic, IT managing director at business and technology consulting firm Accenture, says that businesses can become stuck when making decisions as a result of the sheer number of new capabilities the market has made available.

Becirovic thinks this kind of technology-first approach leads to tools and services being adopted that don’t adapt to user needs.

In our new role, we need to enable businesses and help them uncover new streams of revenue. Concurrently, we must focus on the specific needs of the customer and the growth potential of any technology in alignment with overarching organisational goals.

Relationship building

Director in operations excellence practice at West Monroe Partners, Colleen Campbell, says that in order to achieve maximum potential efficiency, we must connect with business stakeholders.

“If a technology leader can state clearly how their technology choices have impact ROI, business leaders will listen and see the line that is drawn from cost to benefit.”

“This is accomplished through relationship building, stakeholder management, communications strategies, program management, metrics, skill capabilities, cultural alignment to goals, and organisational changes.”

CTO of digital design agency SPR, Matt Mead, says there needs to be a sense that business and IT leaders have worked together in projecting and implementing the IT needs for the upcoming year.

Developing IT plans in a vacuum or simply duplicating the strategy of the previous year can lead to significant inefficiencies and affect the businesses ability to remain competitive.

The Cloud

The cloud offers efficiency like never before. Almost any organisation can become more efficient by leveraging the power of cloud / SaaS / IaaS offerings.

These services are designed with agility in mind and allow businesses to scale up or down as they need while leveraging best-of-breed solutions to fulfil the ever changing needs of an organisation.

Gabe Girodano, chair of the MIS department of Ohio University, says that while data centre to cloud migration costs can be rather high, the medium to long-term cost savings are worth it. The lower physical infrastructure expenses, combined with reduced IT management and user support costs can produce significant cost-savings over time.

“The rapidly increasing cost of IT security will make these savings even more significant in many settings moving forward.”

Public Cloud vs Private Cloud vs Hybrid Cloud – Which Is Right For You?

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Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services, infrastructure and resources via the internet, with deployment options including public, private and hybrid cloud.

What is a Public Cloud

Public clouds are the most common when it comes to setting up cloud computing. The cloud resources, such as servers and storage, are owned and operated by a third-party cloud service provider, which is then delivered via the internet.

All hardware, supporting infrastructure and software is owned and managed by the cloud provider as, in a public cloud, all hardware, storage and network devices are shared with other organisations aka cloud tenants.

Public cloud services are frequently accessed via a web browser and most commonly provide web-based mail, online office applications, storage and testing and development environments.

Public cloud advantages include:

  • Lower costs – due to not being required to purchase hardware or software
  • No maintenance as the service provider is responsible for maintenance
  • Close to unlimited scalability
  • Increased reliability

What is a Private Cloud

A private cloud is comprised of computing resources used exclusively by a single business or organisation. Private Cloud is a secure and high performance solution available for businesses seeking the added resilience of having their infrastructure, servers and storage housed within a secure data centre environment. We discovered that many businesses prefer not to operate in a multi-tenant and public cloud environment because of internal policies, industry compliance legislation or just personal preference.

The infrastructure and services in a private cloud are always maintained on a private network where the hardware and software is specifically dedicated to a single organisation and a single organisation only. This allows organisations to tailor their resources to meet their exact requirements.

Private clouds are most commonly utilised by organisations with business-critical operations who seek a greater level of control over their environment.

Private cloud advantages include:

  • Greater security
  • Increased flexibility
  • High levels of customisation
  • Increased scalability
  • Greater efficiency

Learn more about eStorm’s Private Cloud solutions and what Infrastructure as as Service (IaaS) is.

What is a Hybrid Cloud

Hybrid clouds offer a combination of on-premise infrastructure with cloud based services in order to maximise the benefits of both solutions.

A complete cloud solution isn’t always the right solution for all businesses as there can be limiting factors, such as poor internet access that limit the benefits of moving all your IT infrastructure and applications to the cloud.

Hybrid cloud solutions are tailored to provide you with the best of both worlds. Experience the benefit of on premise IT resources whilst still maintaining some of the benefits of a full cloud solution such as anywhere access, full redundancy and disaster recovery

Hybrid cloud advantages include:

  • Flexibility
  • Control
  • Cost-effectiveness
  • Easy transition

Overall Benefits

All 3 methods for deployment provide similar benefits, which include:

  • cost-effectiveness
  • performance
  • reliability
  • flexibility
  • scale

Learn more about eStorm’s Hybrid Cloud solutions and why a complete cloud solution isn’t right for all businesses.

Still not sure which is the right solution for you? Or perhaps you’re undertaking some cloud changes and could use some guidance to be certain you’re making the right decision – you can learn more with eStorm’s Cloud Consulting services. If you’d like any further information please contact us on (07) 3120 0640 or email us at any time [email protected].

Sources:
eStorm Hybrid Cloud
eStorm Private Cloud
Microsoft Cloud

What is AWS (Amazon Web Services) and How Can Your Business Benefit?

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What is Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services, or AWS, is a secure cloud services platform that offers computing power, database storage, content delivery, deployment tools and other functionality solutions that can increase your businesses flexibility and reliability while maintaining agility, lowering your IT costs, and scaling your applications.

From data warehousing to deployment tools, directories to content delivery, over 50 services are available at the click of a mouse with AWS.

Deep features such as a wide range of database engines, server configurations, encryption and powerful big data tools enable you to stay focused on your core business, and not on gathering infrastructure.

How can your business benefit?

AWS is as complex as it is powerful and there are several different solutions that can be tailored for specific cloud environments.

When used correctly, AWS can deliver greater flexibility within your business, which is why we recommend utilising the expertise of IT professionals to help you choose the right instances and tools for your applications. For example, eStorm can design redundant and secure environments as well as manage your migration and optimise your deployments.

Learn more about eStorm’s AWS support.

Rightsized for Your Size

AWS solutions can be scaled to your business needs via tailored solutions for small, medium and large corporations. Our solutions are specifically aimed at providing maximum value and cost effectiveness for your AWS environment. 

Focus on Your Applications in AWS — Not Your AWS Infrastructure

Your applications are key to the running of your business, however monitoring performance and tracking costs at the application level within AWS often requires a resource-draining effort. From architecture to monitoring, we focus and drill down on individual applications and not merely AWS infrastructure.

One option we provide is a monthly report card that delivers you the relevant data required to keep costs in line with your business objectives.

Customised Control: The Right Way to do Managed AWS

Our approach to AWS allows for custom managed services delegation. This means that if you want to keep some AWS tasks in-house, we are able to facilitate that. Alternatively, you are can unburden yourself and put it on our plate, from infrastructure management to the convenience of having us as a single billing contact for all your AWS services. Our mission is to lighten your load and give you back the time needed to innovate and grow your business with the assurance that you’re always in control.

Hybrid — The Future is Flexible

Our comprehensive portfolio of infrastructure solutions gives you the agility to optimise architecture as your workloads, security concerns and compliance requirements evolve. Moving to a hybrid solution can simultaneously optimise AWS deployment performance and contain costs.

If you’d like to find out exactly how we can help your business, or if you require any further information, assistance with your IT needs or you simply don’t know where to start – please feel free to call us on (07) 3120 0640 or email us at [email protected]