20 latest trends in IT – roundtable ... continued from previous page
might not be beneficial in some business circumstances. He exampled a busy doctor’s surgery where a cloud system going offline could lead back to ‘pen and paper’ communication. “Maybe there, a local IT system with a nightly backup would be better.”
operator who will be around in 4-5 years? If I have to exit the service how do I get my data back?
“The risks to business are probably more about how people feel about their data moving off their premises, than actual security. Data is actually more secure offsite, but there is still that perception that if it is offsite, it is outside your control.”
Roundtable sponsor Sean Taylor recalled his 25 years working in IT, including within Silicon Valley USA: “No-one today questions the importance of what we called back then ‘the information super highway’, ie the Internet. Cloud is most definitely here, it is significant and important, and businesses can’t hide away from it.”
Colin Blumenthal
“You can very easily get washed into ‘Let’s go cloud’ because it’s the trendy thing to do.” But, cloud can have significant cost and efficiency advantages, he highlighted. “Perhaps the answer is to dip one’s toe first into those applications that are not business critical, then look at extending cloud when there is confidence in proper security and infrastructure being in place.”
Retailer Eamon Wynne, an IT end-user, agreed: “It is a maturing thing, as with all new technology. Dipping one’s toes in the non-essential applications is where we wanted to start.” Furniture Village currently uses very little cloud – mainly for emails – and its critical IT data is hosted at source, but the company is now considering a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system potentially using cloud. “It’s an interesting decision based on what you perceive the advantages and risks to be.”
Harris suggested anything about the use of IT should be a commercial decision, since IT was only an enabler of business. Too often IT ended up as ‘the tail wagging the dog.’ The first question should always be: 'Do I need this IT?'
Working in the cloud means that your Internet connection can become 100% critical, and commercial decisions need to be taken to cover that risk.
Thorny questions such as risk v reward
Steve Clarke: “The issue around whether cloud is OK for business has been won. The discussion has now moved on from the use of cloud to more thorny questions: Where is my data going to be and is it secure? Are only my eyes seeing it? What service standards will I get? Am I with a reputable
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His company Content Guru had been formed nine years ago to exploit the opportunities of cloud. “Then no-one knew what cloud was, or they did and they worried about its reliability, security, and cost. In the past three years, the discussion has changed to become reactive, with people now wanting go into cloud, and it’s just a matter of how far.
“The most important thing is to look at the business outcomes to be achieved.” Mobility and flexibility might be two. Following the hacking experiences of Sony and other large well-known organisations, security was definitely another, and critical for many clients, he added. “Security will be the big thing we’ll talk about this year and next, but it is really just an operational thing that needs to be buttoned down.”
Walker: “Cloud has become such a catch- all term for every single flavour of offsite IT.”
“Would I recommend that, as an example, a mid-size law firm put all their IT into a huge public cloud service with a global service provider, where they have no control over whose jurisdiction the data is managed? Absolutely, not.
“Would I recommend it uses a smaller provider where the firm’s managing partner can visit the data centre to manage its risk, and also look at a second data centre in another part of the UK? Yes I would, because the localised security around that can be specified at the right level for that organisation.”
Taylor revealed that he was aware of one large company doing exactly that in Germany, using a ‘pay only for usage’ Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform but localised solely to German data storage.
Clarke: “It is not about the technology, it is about the business risk. ‘Do I want to touch the servers in my cloud, or just be happy that they are somewhere in the cloud.’ More and more nowadays, CEOs are happy with the concept of cloud and it’s a decision about the risk being low enough and the rewards high enough to take cloud aboard.”
‘Fluffy clouds’ and sector consolidation
Chris Sykes agreed cloud is a catch-all term, but a technology that is continuing to evolve with many different facets. “We tend to operate with ‘fluffy clouds,’ the next wave of technology coming through, which is fundamentally changing the landscape of IT.”
Such startups and emerging vendors are actually growing very quickly, he noted, with the old guard of major IT companies now simply calling themselves cloud companies. Sykes highlighted how Amazon had rapidly grown to become a cloud market leader, despite competition from established IT stalwarts.
“It’s now a very interesting space. Oracle bought a company a few weeks ago that has technology allowing you to talk directly to the cloud. EMC recently acquired a cloud company for $50 million that has just one customer. I think you are going to see a lot more of these cloud startups being hoovered up by the big boys.”
There was general Roundtable agreement that M&A activity and consolidation was on the increase in the cloud sector.
Chris Sykes
Let’s talk telephony . . . hopefully on a blip-free line
Telephony (the technology of sound communication, with or without the use of wires) is rapidly developing on the cloud front – but the worry about VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is achieving 100% consistent Internet connectivity, which remains a business concern. VOIP talk may be cheap but it also needs to be heard 24/7.
Walker: “The use of IP in telephony has existed for 15-20 years and hosted versions of VoIP have mainly been adopted by SMEs, although some mid-market businesses of up to 1,000 users now use fully-hosted telephony services.
It’s being adopted
a bit like hosted IT for similar benefits of moving capital expenditure to operating expenditure. The thing is, you don’t notice a blip in hosted email traffic, whereas if your
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – MARCH 2015
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