Most people, for the past two or three years, have been talking about infrastructure-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, software-as-a-service, private clouds, public clouds and hybrid clouds, but what is really important is the need for organisations to figure out what their cloud entails, figuring out what combination of cloud models are important for them when building their cloud for their business requirements.
Therefore, the cloud conversation has moved beyond the infrastructure layer to a business needs layer in SA, says Brett Dunn, team lead, Enterprise System Engineers at EMC Southern Africa.
Dunn says he is seeing a rapid shift in approach to adopting cloud computing in SA. "As recently as a year and a half ago, I heard a lot of 'we will never adopt a cloud strategy'. But now, business is rapidly adopting cloud models so that they can have a strategic advantage by being more agile, efficient and secure, so that they can bring products and services to market quicker and have the necessary competitive edge, while reducing cost.
"Now they are adopting a private cloud strategy; deploying their own Amazon-type services functionality within their own organisations in a private cloud fashion," he says.
Helping drive this change in attitude are new business imperatives, he notes. "Cloud isn't about infrastructure anymore, but rather about having infrastructure as transparent and integrated with cloud models that support critical applications to allow for cost savings, agility, and speed to market. Now, business people are asking: 'If I invest in cloud, what will my ROI be, when will I see a ROI and how will it improve my business and time to market of offered products and services?'"
With the sudden swing to cloud computing, Dunn sees rapid change occurring in the IT department.
"IT infrastructure folk are now transforming themselves and learning how to deliver IT services within their organisations, in an automated, metered and service-orientated fashion, similar to that of service providers. IT departments are going to have to evolve, learn to promote service-orientated IT services, take an on-demand approach, and become more flexible and agile in delivering those services."
Dunn will address the upcoming ITWeb Cloud Computing Summit on the topic: 'Building clouds for service delivery, not architecture'. For more information about this event, click here.
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