Comms Dealer January 2011

BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION

www.comms-dealer.com CLOUD COMPUTING ADDS U

You could be forgiven for thinking that channel change is already well underway: Many vendors are moving towards the ISV model, while growth in cloud computing, virtualisation and data centres continues unabated alongside growing demand for professional services, a greater need for mobility, remote working and simplicity in the delivery of communications. Is now the time to act and make a plan?

Also building is the case for resellers to introduce a cloud component to their portfolios. According to Andy Beynon, Managing Director of Abtec Partner Services, a growing number of resellers are being asked about the benefits of cloud computing and virtualisation. &#x201C;There is a generous helping of hype around the cloud revolution,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;However, in the long- term these technologies will be very important in fulfilling customer requirements. Cloud computing is already a well established technology in the virtualisation space. Customers are building private clouds and realising substantial business benefits.&#x201D;

T

Private cloud product vendors are now

packaging their products as virtual appliances that can be simply added to a customer&#x2019;s virtualisation platform. And according to Beynon, resellers&#x2019; traditional revenues are under threat. Meanwhile, phone system manufacturers are investing in and promoting virtual appliance products in place of the traditional PBX, and the lowest risk path for a reseller is to partner with an organisation already active in the cloud computing space. &#x201C;This allows sales teams to become familiar with the technology without

he clouds are building and

making an impact on the channel.

the high investment in accreditation and training costs,&#x201D; said Beynon. &#x201C;As resellers become more confident with the technology they can ease themselves into self sufficiency. Within their portfolio there should be room for both on- premise and off-premise cloud solutions.&#x201D;

Individual sales models can be adapted to ensure sales teams are motivated to promote the technology without penalising them with commission constraints, pointed out Beynon. &#x201C;A good option is to consider how incentives work in the calls, line and minutes marketplace,&#x201D; he observed. &#x201C;Businesses that are familiar with the least cost routing sales model and the challenges faced with balancing up front commission and cashflow will do very well in the new space.&#x201D;

Clear understanding A successful transition will depend on the business leader having a clear understanding of their customer base and where cloud technology can address some of the issues customers are facing. &#x201C;Before jumping on the bandwagon leaders in this space will have to carefully consider who they partner with,&#x201D; added Beynon.

Despite traction on the ground, there is much industry hype around cloud computing, believes Chris Barrow, Advanced

Technologies Marketing Manager for Avaya. &#x201C;This stems from the fact that it is still a relatively new concept,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;There is also a lot of uncertainty in the industry about the extent to which the cloud will impact businesses. From a communications point of view, we definitely think the cloud revolution is gathering pace and we like to think of it as a logical next step towards creating more efficient and more scalable real-time communications environments.&#x201D;

Barrow confirms that many of the customers known to Avaya are moving some of their business applications to the cloud, but he noted that it needs to be done on a case by case basis. &#x201C;One of the big decisions that CIOs need to make is whether applications are cloud-ready. Many non real-time applications including CRM and ERP, for example, are ripe for cloud deployment. But at the same time the thought of moving other real-time apps such as voice and video to the cloud still makes many CIOs nervous.&#x201D;

The cloud is something that will be difficult for IT departments to ignore, largely because of the benefits that it can bring to the business in terms of overall simplicity, cost and power savings, but also because of the security, resiliency and scalability it offers. Barrow added: &#x201C;For the end user it allows them to access the applications

and services they are used to, but from more locations and on more devices. It allows them to work more flexibly and more profitably than before.&#x201D;

Simplification

One of the key benefits of virtualising enterprise communications is the ability to massively simplify what can become very complex enterprise communications environments. By taking a standards-based approach to virtualising real-time communications, businesses can have a single server running multiple applications, from voice and data through to media applications, at the same time. &#x201C;This not only simplifies the installation and ongoing management for the IT department, but it also allows the solution to be remotely deployed in one or two hours so everything can be managed centrally and there is no need to add extra IT staff to support a new facility in a different location,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;As a by-product, upgrades also become easier and it becomes a much simpler task to roll out new communication services such as presence and IM from a single location.&#x201D;

Businesses can also reduce hardware, power, cooling and maintenance requirements by up to 75 per cent, leading to a lower total cost of ownership and a smaller carbon footprint.

A virtualised comms environment also gives business much needed security and resiliency for their mission critical communications as there is built-in remote monitoring, no single point of failure and an optional backup server for redundancy.

These benefits have prompted many industry analysts to talk about the death of the PBX. &#x201C;We don&#x2019;t believe there is such a thing as the death of the PBX,&#x201D; stated Barrow. &#x201C;We do see, however, that the PBX is undergoing a major transformation from a fixed, closed and proprietary phone system to an open real-time communications architecture that allows users to access communication services such as voice, video, presence and IM from any location, through any network and on any device.

&#x201C;When PBX customers hear people say that the PBX is dead they can be scared into replacing a perfectly functional system for no real gain. What is needed is a more migratory approach, allowing customers to protect their existing PBX investment while building an architecture for real-time collaboration in the future. This doesn&#x2019;t require the large capital investment of a rip and replace approach but instead allows a customer to simply upgrade their current estate at their own pace.&#x201D;

40 COMMS DEALER JANUARY 2011

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