MANAGED SERVICES hosting
#dcsarticle
http://www.dcseurope.info/n/qysq
The cloud opportunity: Seven factors for defining success
Jelle Frank van der Zwet and Vincent in’t Veld, Interxion offer seven key tips for hosting providers looking to capitalise on the cloud era and exploit the opportunities the technology can bring.
THE MARKET FOR CLOUD SERVICES is growing rapidly, with 451 Research predicting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24% from 2011 to 2015. What’s more, the global cloud market is being dominated by the US, which owns 63% of total cloud revenues to date. But what about European cloud players?
Most of the hype surrounding cloud computing often comes with a US perspective, particularly considering the provenance of the market’s heavyweights, like Google. But despite the US enjoying great success in this area the European market landscape is a completely different challenge. Only 6% of cloud vendors are European. The absence of a single European hosting market, highly fragmented local markets with significant differences in requirements, culture, market size and IT buying behaviour make it all that more difficult for businesses to lay down the required investment and innovation needed to reap the rewards.
So what can European hosting companies do to cut through the noise of the competition and be heard in the cloud market? Here are 7 key success factors that will help any hosting company transform the
48
www.dcseurope.info I February 2014
way they are approaching and capitalising on cloud computing.
1. Don’t compete on price
Unless you have the scale or deep pockets to compete in a race to the bottom, don’t compete on price. Instead, differentiate yourself from competitors through advice and support. Use the insight you have into your customers’ IT strategies to assist with more complex workloads or business continuity processes where price is not the main issue.
2. The reality is hybrid
Most customers source diverse cloud services from a range of providers. So it makes sense to differentiate your offering through integration capabilities, rather than competing head-on. Use global cloud providers to your advantage; your customers will feel comfortable consuming some workloads from a big public cloud platform, while other workloads need to remain within a local and/or private cloud environment. Look beyond your own platform and use industry or open standards to enable federated usage.
3. Follow the IT lifecycle; monitor the opportunity
Don’t expect IT departments to give up
on their existing infrastructure before its lifecycle has ended, especially when budgets are tight. Success ultimately depends on understanding your customers’ technology and economic lifecycles and identifying disruptive technologies that will help them build their business case for cloud migration.
4. Offer the highest possible availability As the old adage goes, ‘the customer is always right.’ So if customers expect 100% guarantees when their applications have moved to the cloud – even when it’s not realistic – how do you ensure your service is as close to 100% available as possible?
Your service level agreement (SLA) should be based on the physical location – the data centre. Choose a provider with first-class in-house design and engineering skills and a proven track record of delivering availability under all conditions over time. Their sites should also be regularly audited to the most stringent standards, so check this is taking place. And when it comes to disaster recovery, you’ll need to offer redundant solutions for critical systems and data.
5. Customer service is paramount Customer service should always be top priority. This means investing in problem
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52