PUBLIC CLOUD: TRENDS AND CONSIDERATIONS FOR BUSINESS

Transcription

1 PUBLIC CLOUD: TRENDS AND CONSIDERATIONS FOR BUSINESS Cloud Services Cloud services are computing and other software services that are typically provided by an external service provider and made available to users via the internet.

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 01 Introduction: What are Cloud Services? 02 Public Cloud for Business 03 BCX as a Provider of Public Cloud Services 04 BCX: Value Proposition 05 The BCX Key Differentiators 06 Glossary of Terms 1 BCX 2016

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4 01 INTRODUCTION: WHAT ARE CLOUD SERVICES? These services are provided off IT (Information Technology) infrastructure that is installed in centralised data centres and then offered as a service to individuals and businesses. Public cloud services are those services where companies share the infrastructure that resides in the external service provider s data centres, while private cloud services are where a company makes use of infrastructure that is dedicated for their use. The traditional model of providing computing or software services to multiple users was for a business to install computer servers in its own data centre and then to make those services available to its users over the company s network. The emerging model is for companies to use services provided by a 3 rd party and accessed through the internet, or in the cloud. Growth in Cloud Services The Cisco Global Cloud Index 1 projects that cloud will grow to represent 76% of total data centre traffic by 2018 and that private cloud usage will grow to 31% of all cloud workloads in that same year. enterprise cloud adoption is increasing as buyers realise the cost savings, flexibility and resilience of the cloud. Models of Cloud Service: Private, Public and Hybrid Cloud Services One of the important discussions around cloud services is whether enterprises should make use of private or public cloud services and the benefits or risks of either model. While consumers and smaller organisations are more likely to make a complete move to public cloud services, a large enterprise is more likely to consider the hybrid cloud model, using a combination of public and private cloud services to suit its business models and IT strategies. Our research indicates that enterprise cloud adoption is increasing as buyers realise the cost savings, flexibility and resilience of the cloud Everest Group, Enterprise Cloud Services Annual Report, 2015 Types of Cloud Services: IaaS, PaaS and SaaS Cloud services can also take many forms. The commonly used term of as a service describes the various domains in cloud services and is mostly used in the following areas, each providing an indication of the nature of the end-service that is offered in the cloud. Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas) IaaS includes servers, networks, storage, operating systems and is used to allow companies to self-provision scalable infrastructure services on demand. Platform as a Service (PaaS) PaaS includes operating systems and middleware and is used for the rapid development and deployment of applications. Software as a Service (SaaS) SaaS includes software applications (marketing, sales, operations, collaboration, etc.) and is used to provide software over the Internet to end-users. ¹ Cisco Global Cloud Index ( ), November 2014 ² Everest Group, Enterprise Cloud Services Annual Report 2015: Contracting Remains Cloudy, April 2015 The Everest Group, in reviewing global cloud service engagements, also forecasts a growth in cloud adoption and estimates a 23% to 27% annual compound growth in globalservice engagements 2. In its view, private cloud services represent approximately 40% of this market and public cloud services approximately 33%, with the balance comprised of cloudrelated professional and management services. This growth is being driven by large enterprises recognising the benefits of cloud services. Says the Everest Group: Our research indicates that 3 BCX 2016

5 Public Cloud Growth According to IDC s Worldwide Semi-annual Public Cloud Services Tracker 3, public cloud services will account for more than half of worldwide software, server and storage spending growth by In terms of SaaS, IaaS and PaaS, IDC s predictions show SaaS as being the major contributor to public cloud services: IDC expects software as a service (SaaS) will continue to dominate public IT cloud services spending, accounting for 70% of 2014 cloud services expenditures. This is largely because most customer demand is at the application level. The second largest public IT cloud services category will be infrastructure as a service (IaaS), boosted by cloud storage s 31% CAGR over the forecast period. Platform as a service (PaaS) and cloud storage services will be the fastest growing categories, driven by major upticks in developer cloud services adoption and big data driven solutions, respectively. 4 Planning for Cloud Services A business will need to have a clear understanding of how cloud services and its existing IT services are going to evolve in the future and how cloud-based services can be leveraged to take advantage of the additional capability, capacity, flexibility and efficiency that it can offer. A further, important consideration in adopting a cloud strategy will be working with the right service provider who can cover a range of converged telecommunications, networks, internet and cloud services and can work in partnership with organisations as they migrate to cloud services, and augment their cloud strategy with public cloud services. ³ IDC, Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Tracker, Worldwide Public IT Cloud Services Spending by Segment (in $ billions) $127.5 Platform as a Service Software as a Service Infrastructure as a Service $ Figure 1: Public IT Cloud Services Spending, IDC, 2014 to 2018 BCX

6 02 PUBLIC CLOUD FOR BUSINESS Considerations The overall benefits of cloud services for businesses need to be considered in the process of evaluating public cloud services. Some of the standard business benefits that are mentioned for cloud services are: flexibility/agility/scalability; self-provisioning of services/on-demand capability; resource sharing/cost efficiency; service accessibility/multi-channel access/geographical access; and monitoring, reporting and optimisation of service usage. In evaluating the potential for public cloud services, businesses will need to consider both internal and external factors that will help them determine the extent to which they should make use of public cloud services and the correct timing and approach for adopting or migrating to those services. In a 2013 report on the South African cloud and related services market 5, IDC summarised the issues affecting cloud in the South African market. Some of these included the following: the high level of maturity of IT adoption; the acceptance of the outsourcing delivery model in South Africa; reducing costs of public cloud services; the cost and quality of local and international bandwidth; and security. While reviewing these benefits and considerations, it is important to note that the approach to public cloud services and the benefits of those services will differ based on the size of the organisation and the complexity of its IT environment. SMEs are expected to more easily adopt available applications in the SaaS model, while large businesses are more likely to consider the benefits of scalable infrastructure on demand (IaaS), and the opportunity for using cloud for software development and testing through PaaS. 5 DC, South Africa Cloud, Hosted, Managed, and Outsourcing Services Market, December 2013 Large Business/Enterprise Sector and Public Cloud For large businesses, the nature of the public cloud services they are likely to use and the process of adopting or migrating to those services, are going to differ from smaller businesses. The likelihood of entrenched business processes and legacy systems in larger business means that migrating services to the public cloud will involve more diligence in the evaluation and planning of those changes. A two-fold approach may be considered for large business: Carefully evaluating and planning legacy infrastructure environments that can be migrated to the public cloud, especially those that show potential significant improvements in cost, risk and flexibility goals. Looking for non-core or new environments that can be rundirectly off public cloud services, especially those that can support competitive advantage goals. The transition path to public cloud services for large business will involve a considered process: Evaluating current infrastructure, systems and business processes to determine the feasibility of migrating them to public cloud. Determining the non-core and speed-to-market opportunities for public cloud in the business environment. Migrating business processes, systems, infrastructure and support resources to the new environment. Conducting POCs (Proof of Concept) and, where applicable, continue running legacy services in parallel. Implementing and testing new public cloud business opportunities. Rolling out services on to the public cloud. IaaS for the Large Business/Enterprise Sector IaaS is seen as a likely consideration for large businesses that are looking for alternative capacity to augment their infrastructure and improve the scalability of their business environment. This is commonly required for extending capacity in the areas of developing and testing software, high volume production environments and to support business continuity requirements. Most businesses procure IaaS for either the benefits of the agile development environment or the standard benefits of sourcing more capacity and gaining the benefits of scalability and cost efficiency. 5 BCX 2016

7 The potential benefits in IaaS for large businesses include the following: Acquire additional capacity to fulfill the demand for infrastructure services that will support development, production and DR (Disaster Recovery) environments. Get access to virtual computers, storage, network and other infrastructure on which to deploy and run software and business applications. Get billed according to resource usage CPU, data storage, network, etc. Have more direct control over your services and software (as compared to SaaS). Outsource the management of physical hardware, virtualisation and cloud management tools. PaaS for Large Business/Enterprise Sector PaaS is seen as a likely consideration for large businesses that have their own software development and testing resources, or for other organisations that focus a lot of their effort on this domain. The potential benefits of PaaS include the following: rapid set-up of environments for web and mobile application development; on-demand access to testing environments; access to database integration services; get billed according to resource usage users, hours, infrastructure utilisation, etc.; outsource management for the platform infrastructure; outsource other platform components such as middleware and database; outsource the management of physical hardware, operating systems and storage; and maintain control over your applications in the PaaS environment. SaaS for SME While large businesses are more likely to adopt a hybrid private and public cloud approach, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are more likely to adopt public cloud services, specifically SaaS. SMEs priorities and resources are almost exclusively focused on acquiring and keeping clients, and on maintaining financial stability. As a result, they have fewer resources to dedicate to support functions and less time to investigate, build and deploy new business capabilities. They are looking for solutions that can be activated without spending too much time on preparation, testing and implementing new services. According to BCSG 6, in a survey of 600 companies in Western Europe, 78% of businesses indicated that they were considering purchasing new cloud solutions in the next 2-3 years, and the average number of applications being used was likely to grow from 3 to 7. Some of the key application areas for SMEs are in the following areas: Financial Management - Bookkeeping - Expense management - Payroll Marketing and Customer Service Management - Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - campaigns - Social media management - Service desk Collaboration and Management - Hosted - Web conferencing - File sharing and backup - Productivity - Project management - Workforce management Some of the benefits of SaaS include the following: easily set up and scale users on business applications; low upfront costs; get billed according to resources used - end-users, hours, etc.; outsource the full management of the software application and supporting infrastructure; maintain control over user administration and the required application configuration capabilities; support direct access to end-users or administer and manage users; gain the benefits of higher adoption rates due to general familiarity with internet applications; and outsource responsibility for upgrades and patch management. Acquiring Public Cloud Services Sourcing or acquiring public cloud services requires an understanding of the types of service providers and the benefits of using local versus international service providers. Using local providers for public cloud services has the benefits of lower bandwidth costs, improved performance, the ability to keep data incountry and the benefit of working with service providers that have the understanding and ability to meet local compliance requirements. The USA s Department of Commerce s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has defined various roles in its cloud computing standards 7. These are useful in understanding the contribution of various parties in the cloud delivery supply chain: Cloud provider company that provides cloud services to end-users, including the infrastructure and network access requirements for cloud users. Cloud carrier company that provides connectivity andtransport for cloud services. Cloud broker manages the use and performance of cloud services on behalf of cloud providers and offers value- added or aggregated cloud services, for example migration and deployment. Cloud auditor conducts audit of the governance and security of the cloud environment against regulatory or industry audit and compliance standards. It is always beneficial to separate the auditing function to ensure audit independence. However, there are benefits for businesses to have fewer interfaces and they should consider whether the provider of public cloud services can fulfill the functions of provider, carrier and broker. In acquiring public cloud services, businesses should consider the proven capability of the service provider in managing infrastructure services, the role of the service provider in other IT and telecommunications services, as well as the benefits of having a single service provider for account management, service management and billing. 6 BCSG, The small business revolution: trends in SMB cloud adoption, NIST Cloud Computing Standards Roadmap, 2013 BCX

8 03 BCX AS A PROVIDER OF PUBLIC CLOUD SERVICES Services Offered BCX is a provider of multiple services and is in a position to launch a range of public cloud services targeted at both the Large Enterprise and SME segments. Future Services SaaS Desktop Backup Server Backup Office 365 Backup Local File Sync and Share Advanced Directory/Identity Sync Windows 10 Public Cloud IaaS Web Hosting Windows Linux Microsoft Azure Public Cloud SaaS Office 365 Hosted Exchange (Localised) Exchange Online Microsoft OneDrive Delve Analytics Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite Mimecast Archiving Mimecast Continuity User ID Management Spam Management Intune Microsoft Power BI Microsoft Project SharePoint Online Visio Skype for Business Microsoft Yammer Endpoint Intel MacAfee International and local domain name services 7 BCX 2016

9 04 BCX: VALUE PROPOSITION As BCX is in many cases an existing provider of mobile and fixed access services to businesses, extending cloud services into your business environment can be done through a single service provider. The benefits of using BCX as a provider of public cloud services include the following: affordability; ease of buying; single service provider for billing; and integrated IT and telecommunications services - cloud, network, converged access. Value Proposition for Utilising BCX as a Public Cloud Provider On demand, self-provisioning Utility pricing Pre-cloud assessments (desktop and server) Internet access, no network set-up required Instant access to integrated software Data sovereignty, customer data stays in borders of South Africa No international bandwidth costs Latency improvement, traffic is kept in South Africa Public cloud built on international best practices with world leading hardware and software providers Security/PCI compliant public cloud platform Full activation and migration of existing service into the cloud Managed services to manage tenants on ongoing bases Support on your terms The virtualisation software on BCX s public cloud platform ensures separation between customer environments, causing it to behave like physically separate environments. This ensures that every customer s data is secure and cannot be accessed by other customers. BCX

10 Immediate Resources No need to wait on IT to provision hardware Data Residency Choice of where data retained Choice of Platforms Support for Windows, Linux and Community VM images Flexible Tools Choice of cross-platform management and development tools and frameworks Reduce Costs No need to invest in infrastructure Pay-as-you-Go Match usage with actual demand Fast Deployment Accelerated development Clouds Should Live in the Best Data Centres Invest in Other Areas Free up capital for other uses Agility and Innovation Quickly move forward against competition Compute Close to Consumption Service Level Agreements In place Time to market Open and flexible Economics 9 BCX 2016

11 05 THE BCX KEY DIFFERENTIATORS BCX is one of the largest ICT services providers on the African continent with a clear focus to serve the enterprise, public sector and Medium market segments across the continent. Our passion is to seamlessly connect every business with its digital future. All the solutions are offered end-to-end, ensuring that your business benefits from economy of scale and superior service quality. Unmatched Data Centre and Network Infrastructure Telkom s footprint includes 3 Tier 4 data centres, kms of fibre and over 2700 mobile sites integrated throughout South Africa. Unrivalled ICT Solutions Set Proven ICT capabilities, with market leadership positions on both IT and telecommunication services. Industry-Vertical Leadership Leader in Service Excellence Market leader in retail, mining & manufacturing, banking & financial services (Gartner). Also key solutions provider for the public sector. Leading IT service management with an ITIL maturity rating of 4.25 The highest on the African continent (Pink Elephant: 2014) Unparalleled Geographical Reach Extensive geographical reach with trained IT field engineers in multiple locations across Africa. Strategic Vendor Relationships Strong relationships with key technology vendors to ensure best technology solutions. BCX

12 06 GLOSSARY OF TERMS 3G Third-generation wireless telephone technology B2B Business to Business B2C Business to Consumer B2E Business to Employee BAS Business Advisory Services CSB Cloud Services Brokerage IaaS Infrastructure as a Service IT Information Technology ICT Information and Communications Technology/ies IM Instant messaging IoT Internet of Things IP Internet Protocol IPI ICT Planning and Integration JDA Johannesburg Development Agency JSE Johannesburg Stock Exchange M2M Machine to Machine PaaS Product as a Service PBXs Private Branch Exchanges PoP Point of Presence PoS Point of Sale QoS Quality of Service RSM Risk Service Management SaaS Software as a Service SAP Systems, Applications and Products SI System Integration SLA Service Level Agreement SMS Short Message Service UC Unified Communications 11 BCX 2016

13 ABOUT BCX BCX is one of Africa s leading premier ICT solutions and service provider with the technology, capability and skills to deliver end-to-end digital solutions for large and medium enterprises in the public and private sectors. BCX leads with an unrivalled ICT solutions embedded on the foundation of unmatched Data Centre and Network Infrastructure and include world class solutions in ICT consulting and digital readiness assessments; a complete range of managed solutions that include both LAN and WAN; unified communications and connectivity solutions. In addition, cloud computing technologies underpinned by best in class security solutions and a host of value added services that include enterprise mobility services and analytics software with a specialised competency in the IOT (Internet of Things) and big data solutions. BCX is a leader in Service excellence and boasts the largest pool of ICT skills in Africa, unparalleled geographic reach and points of network presence across the continent. Our strategic vendor relationships with leading multinationals enable BCX to deliver best in class solutions across industry verticals with skills and expertise seamlessly deliver integrated services to our customers. BCX is committed to providing ICT solutions that reduce the cost of doing business, increase overall business productivity and empower businesses to use technology as a competitive advantage. Migrate your business into the digital future contact thoughtleader@bcx.co.za Find us: BCX/@BCXworld