With the cloud computing era promising to take the management burden associated with running an organisation's infrastructure, software and support environments away, you'd think that CIOs would be looking forward to a future filled with Pi~na Coladas and walks on the beach.
Instead they're finding themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place.
“That's because,” says Greg Pothitos, HP ESSN business unit manager at Tarsus Technologies, “cloud in the context of the South African market is a few years away from being the panacea businesses have been promised.
“Yet at the same time, because it's so close to becoming a reality, most businesses have put a freeze on their infrastructure spend,” he says.
“And quite frankly,” says Pothitos, “doing nothing is the worst thing to do.
“CIOs and IT managers should be looking at what their infrastructural needs will be when they begin adopting cloud computing, and seek out solutions that will tide them through the interim and serve them well into the future,” he says.
“And thankfully, there are number of solutions that meet these criteria,” he adds.
Perfect examples include storage solutions designed to perform the dual role of centralising data and performing a caching function; and appliance-type server/storage solutions that are designed expressly for use in the collaboration space.
“Because the local loop in South Africa's telecoms landscape needs serious upgrading, even once organisations have made the move to a cloud environment they will, in all likelihood, need supplementary onsite infrastructure that's designed to speed up their cloud operations,” Pothitos says.
“And by looking at this kind of equipment today, they get to solve their current IT issues and make available solutions that will supplement their cloud strategy in the coming years,” he says.
“This equipment works great as both a stopgap between their current IT environment and their cloud-based future, and as part of a cloud-acceleration strategy once the move to offsite data centres has been made,” Pothitos says.
“What's important is that customers don't sit idly by and wait for the cloud era to arrive,” he continues.
“There are important steps to take in the interim, and we encourage our resellers and their customers to come and speak to us about what options are available,” he concludes.
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Tarsus Technologies
With more than 26 years of experience in the ICT industry, Tarsus is the leading value-added distributor in South Africa, specialising in the supply of the world's foremost PC and peripheral hardware brands to the local reseller channel.
Tarsus strives to meet the channel's needs for credit funding, stock availability and efficient logistics, ensuring that resellers are able to deliver the highest quality service to their customers, focus on support and compiling the best overall solutions for their end-user customer base at the lowest possible cost.
The company prides itself on its flexibility, adaptability, knowledge, skills and successful track record combined with an industry-leading ability to manage large roll-outs. These are the reasons Tarsus has consistently been rated as the top distributor in the country by international vendors, resellers and the IT media alike.
With its strong commitment to the South African channel, Tarsus is able to not only make the reseller channel more efficient, but more importantly, it plays a vital role in dramatically reducing the costs of doing business in the local ICT market.
Tarsus distributes a range of products from the world's leading manufacturers, including Acer, APC, Cisco, Dell, Gateway, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Meissner, OKI Printing Solutions and Samsung.
Tarsus' head office is situated in Johannesburg, with branches in Cape Town, KwaZulu-Natal, Port Elizabeth, Bloemfontein and Nelspruit. Tarsus has also extended its footprint into Africa, with branches in Namibia, Botswana and Mauritius.
More information about Tarsus is available at: http://www.tarsus.co.za.
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