networks ICT
Outward looking Alternatively, businesses can also look at hosting data in cheaper markets, as opposed to the location where it is typically accessed. This approach can often offer local cost savings, provided the network being used is sufficiently robust to support them.
In the long term, businesses are increasingly looking to emerging markets to take advantage of the potential for business growth in new regions. This diversity poses a challenge with its varying degrees of capacity, pricing, technical advantage and choice alongside local legislation issues around where data is stored, but these challenges also offer opportunities where an infrastructure offers the right degree of agility to take advantage of these factors.
Consequently, during 2012 we will see European businesses increasingly growing their investments in colocation and connectivity facilities within the Asia Pacific region. The colocation market has already undergone a major growth period as businesses realise the technical advantages in terms of the diversity, varying degrees of capacity, pricing and choice.
Cloud
Businesses looking for flexible and agile infrastructure, as well as a sustainable strategy to support growth (or contraction), will continue to look to cloud services in 2012. The cloud has a clear role in helping CIOs achieve these goals, and the ability to provide infrastructure on an ‘as-needed’ basis with cloud services is an especially compelling benefit.
With the political uncertainty and volatile global economy, many organisations are finding it difficult to forecast business activity and infrastructure requirements three to five years ahead. Increasingly, they are trying to find ways to operate in a more agile manner. Although cloud services are not revolutionary in nature, they require businesses to re-shape their infrastructure to be one that’s network- centric in order to reap the benefits.
available nowadays mean businesses can expand to reach locations where Ethernet was previously unavailable. They can also benefit from end-to-end support and diagnostics in order to reduce downtime and increase reliability for improved customer service management and delivery.
Maximise Your Network
Increasingly IT leaders are having to ‘sweat’ their network assets, with cost efficiencies being achieved through this approach by running additional services over a business’s existing infrastructure. By using the network as an asset in this way, additional services can often remove or reduce costs from elsewhere in the business. An example of this approach includes running global IP conferencing functionality across a network or optimising a wide area network (WAN). By adding services onto existing network infrastructure in this way the business can also recoup costs from elsewhere, for example voice costs by using IP conferencing solutions.
It is now also possible to easily integrate an Ethernet WAN on to an existing IPVPN using VPLS-IPVPN interworking.
Next year we will see enterprises becoming more comfortable with the concept of cloud computing – both for private cloud and hybrid environments - that offer businesses the ability to ‘burst’ into the cloud and draw on additional computing resources as needed. This comfort factor will largely be driven by businesses recognising that moving towards cloud computing does not mean handing over the keys to the proverbial closet, but creating test environments in which they can see the benefits of cloud computing for themselves. We’ll also expect to see the creation and consolidation of ‘community of interest’ clouds – bands of organisations that club together around a particular industry vertical or solution area on a shared but secure and cost-effective infrastructure.
Conclusion With businesses no longer in a position to take short or long term risks with their network and technology infrastructure, the priority now is to balance both long and short term investments. Effective network use is central to this balance. Investing in a network in the right way and using it as effectively as possible will encourage growth, cost control and operational efficiency, helping CXOs to manage short and long term priorities whilst effectively aligning business and IT goals.
CIOs also need to overcome internal barriers, find that crucial balance between managing short term priorities whilst developing a long term transition towards virtualization of IT, and ultimately consider where selective partner enabled services can offer greater productivity, efficiency and ensure sustainable operations.
March 2012 I
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