SA needs to up Internet connectivity if cloud computing adoption is to develop faster, says Robert Sussman, joint CEO at Integr8 Group.
Sussman is of the view that there is growing international appreciation for the concept of cloud computing or the integration and virtualisation of heterogeneous IT resources.
He believes that with the provisioning of new undersea cables to include Seacom, Eassy and the upcoming Wacs and Mains cables, together with local loop unbundling and fibre provided by Neotel, Dark Fibre Africa, SA will see faster adoption for the cloud.
According to Sussman, the benefits the country will accrue from adopting cloud computing, includes access to international hosting as well as exposure of local hosted application to offshore environments.
“The impact on the migration from on-premise computing to 'XaaS' will see Internet service providers and telecommunication companies look to managed service providers and integrators for technological innovation - the key requirement being the provision of hosted services, applications and platforms,” Sussman says.
He explains this provision will stimulate the virtualisation environment as required with the hosting of multi-tenanted platforms that are able to scale on demand and allow for the provision of additional resources like dispersed storage-as-a-service, according to growth and uptake of these hosted applications.
“We endorse a continued migration of commoditised applications into the cloud, allowing for 'click to run' and opposed to 'click to install'.”
“Virtualisation is on top of the agenda for most CIOs focusing on the migration from a standard operating environment to a more dynamic environment, according to the Microsoft Operational Framework.
“The upfront once-off capital spend to create a virtualised environment is allowing most companies to gain the long-term benefits of reduced, continued upgrade and optimisation required by business with immediate access to faster computing power and a more structured environment,” says Sussman.
He also notes that decision makers across various industries understand the implementation of distributed computing, which comprises sharing and managing usage of resources.
“Globally, the trend of moving services into the cloud is gaining popularity. The fact is that cloud computing reduces the complexity of the computing process and provides various virtual-based services - including software-as-a-service (SaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) or infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS),” he says.
The services stack, he adds, will always begin with commoditised services. “Testament to this is the migration of the most obvious service, namely e-mail. We are not just talking about e-mail on its own, but a number of affiliated and related services such as archive, retention, continuity and disaster recovery,” Sussman says.
He also reckons SaaS is leading the way for business to become decentralised by way of outsourced hosting and virtualised through the fundamental change in the world's economy.
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