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Cloud reduces IT burden

By Suzanne Franco
Johannesburg, 31 Oct 2014
Not having sound cloud strategies in place will undoubtedly have a negative effect on your organisation, says VMware's Ian Jansen van Rensburg.
Not having sound cloud strategies in place will undoubtedly have a negative effect on your organisation, says VMware's Ian Jansen van Rensburg.

If business applications are hosted in the cloud, it immediately reduces the 'burden' on the internal IT department.

So says Ian Jansen van Rensburg, senior manager, systems engineering at VMware Southern Africa, commenting on the results of the ITWeb/VMware Cloud Computing Survey, which ran online for 14 days in August.

"All organisations want to be successful and today a large part of this success should be pinned on the fact that their employees should have easy, anytime access to core business applications," he says.

"Once applications are moved to the cloud, focus within an IT department can move to more innovative ideas and projects, and take a step into the next wave of 'brave IT' - where what IT does matters," he advises.

The survey respondents expressed the most appropriate cloud model they are using is private cloud (34%), and almost a third chose hybrid cloud. It also emerged the use of public cloud is 16%, and the use of all three cloud options together 20%.

"Some organisations are bound by legislation that dictates their data cannot traverse country borders or even company borders. Some companies also like to be in direct control of their business-critical applications and not just access them via a Web portal. Every environment is unique, which is where the debate about 'which' cloud (public or private) you use really comes into play. Cost will influence this decision," says Jansen van Rensburg.

A hybrid cloud option (a combination of two or more clouds, for example private and public) should be investigated in order to be in a position where organisations can choose the most cost-effective cloud option for a specific project or business challenge.

The majority of respondents (70%) said their organisation has already moved e-mail to the cloud. Backup is the next popular choice for cloud adoption, which is followed by CRM at 41%.

"A cloud strategy all depends on the type of application serving the business (legacy systems or new modern cloud apps). If it is a legacy system, business operations will be moved separately in a phased, well thought-out process - this is not an overnight project. This is what will most likely happen in the back-end because, realistically, does the user really care where the application lives, as long as they can do their work in the simplest, easiest way? In my view, and what we have seen as very popular, users should have single Web portal to access any application (cloud or internal legacy applications)," says Jansen van Rensburg.

Sound cloud

According to the survey, 39% indicated a policy and system-based application development is very important to their business, while 20% said it is critical, and 32% stated it is important. Only 9% stated it is not really important to their organisation.

"Not having sound cloud strategies in place will undoubtedly have a negative effect on your organisation. The majority of users these days are mobile, and by default expect to access their core business applications via mobile devices. Always-on Internet access is a reality, but when dealing with business-critical applications, security and compliance is of utmost importance," advises Jansen van Rensburg.

On a scale of one to five rating how important a mobility and BYOD strategy is to an organisation, 24% rated it to be very important, 32% chose important, and only 3% said it was not important.

It also emerged just over half of respondents are considering entering the cloud through a partner, and 44% on their own.

"Whether to enter cloud through a partner or alone is dependent on the size of the business and complexity of the applications supporting the business. If there are big legacy systems that place complexity and serious challenges on IT to enter the cloud, partnering with a company with the relevant experience is always advisable. If you are a micro business, a cloud partner could also be a very good idea as they take over all your management headaches," Jansen van Rensburg says.