It is believed cloud computing services offer more capable and accessible IT solutions for organisations; but are these innovations being driven back into business?
That's a question posed by Ian Jansen van Rensburg, senior manager systems engineering at VMware Southern Africa.
On this note, VMware, in partnership with ITWeb, is conducting an online Cloud Computing Survey to gain insight into the cloud computing strategies within South African organisations.
"Everybody talks cloud, but are companies actively making use of cloud computing to solve business challenges and allow IT to drive innovation back into the business?"
Jansen van Rensburg believes it is critical, as a global provider of private, public, hybrid and mobile cloud environments through virtualisation technology, for the company to raise awareness around the best use of these cloud architectures and how they can solve business challenges.
"As with any technology within the IT industry, planning, design and execution are critical for success, stability, security and reliability of a business. Building private or public cloud environments is not any different," says Jansen van Rensburg.
"Cloud allows people to think out of the box, shape a business's innovative ideas into an application and get it out to market quickly. Without this agility, businesses will have to take a back seat and see their competitors fly past them."
According to Jansen van Rensburg, cloud environments need a rock-solid foundation. This foundation is built on compute virtualisation technology, and in many cases also makes use of software-defined networking, security and storage, and ensuring these components are covered.
When asked if there are any new developments taking place in the South African cloud computing sphere, Jansen van Rensburg says hybrid cloud is becoming a reality for many companies.
"Choice is important and business does not want to be locked into a specific cloud provider. When administering private and public cloud environment, IT wants a common management, security and network platform."
With regards to the success of South African organisations implementing cloud computing solutions, he says, ultimately it all boils down to profitability and being the best in the market.
"Implementing a cloud solution can provide a company with the competitive-edge it needs, or give back valuable time to spend on future innovation," he says.
Jansen van Rensburg also points out that it depends on the skill level of specific individuals within a company whether South African organisations are on par with overseas companies.
"South Africa does not have to stand back when it comes to skill levels, but very good and even exceptional skills are hard to find in South Africa at the moment. Keeping this in mind, not all companies in South Africa can afford the luxury of deploying the best skills to build state-of-the-art cloud environments. Overseas companies (depending on the country, of course) have access to more and even better skills than we do to assist in building the best solutions available," says Jansen van Rensburg.
He says trends like software-defined networking, security and storage makes building cloud environments easier and cheaper. We are in the middle of a technology and communication explosion that needs to be supported by a mature cloud environment.
"Do people actually think that hosting their complete IT environment in the cloud will work out cheaper or might it be more expensive in the long run with hidden costs increasing as time goes on? This is something to think about," concludes Jansen van Rensburg.
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