News in the Channel - issue #19

INFRASTRUCTURE AS A SERVICE

As companies adapt and adopt new technologies, they need to implement IaaS solutions which are agile and flexible, able to adapt to meet their changing needs. “ ”

Sam Woodcock senior director of cloud strategy

no additional cost to the company. “Those that do not opt for IaaS need to employ teams of people to manage the compute infrastructure, networking, storage, backup, DR, software licencing and more. This limits their ability to innovate and develop new services and solutions as they are focused on infrastructure, which should provide a means to get to the end goal sooner rather than be a stumbling block.” Andy Brown, technical services director, UK, TD SYNNEX, adds that the growth in demand for IaaS is a major contributor to the overall growth in cloud services. “It has a strong appeal to organisations of all sizes as it means that, instead of purchasing a sufficient amount of compute and storage hardware to cope with it on-premise, they can make use of IaaS to manage the peaks of demand. “We are now seeing a more considered approach to the placement of workloads driving a ‘hybrid-first’ approach. Gone are the days when the first assumption was that any new workload would be placed put into a public cloud. Instead, we are now seeing the decision made in a workload-by-workload basis with all the relative factors – including performance, flexibility and cost – of on- premise’, hybrid and public cloud being assessed before a decision is made.” Tom Lovell, CTO at Infinity Group, adds that IaaS can also give businesses affordable backup. “Through IaaS, disaster recovery, and business continuity solutions are available for businesses of all sizes,” he says. “This enhances online infrastructure reliability. IaaS eliminates the need for software and hardware maintenance, as well as troubleshooting. Furthermore, IaaS allows you to access applications as usual during a disaster outage,

maintaining security for your applications and data that couldn’t be attained in-house.”

Changing demands But as IaaS’ popularity continues to grow, what customers are demanding from solutions is evolving too. For instance, Tom says that customers are looking for greater integration and management solutions that help them control and monitor their cloud resources. “Many find that without integral control, costs can rapidly spiral and organisations are looking to IaaS as a means of reducing overall expenditure,” he says. “With increased awareness of cybersecurity risks comes an increased desire for enhanced security and compliance tools that help alignment with regulatory standards.” Paul adds that demand for true consumption- based models that are vendor agnostic and can be accounted for as an off-balance sheet service rather than an asset is increasing too. “It is increasingly the CFO who defines the commercial construct of the service and with that change the engagement approach with OEM’s and service partners,” he says. He adds that technological advances, coupled with evolving businesses means demands for IaaS are undergoing a significant shift. “The evolving demands for IaaS underscore a fundamental shift towards holistic solutions that not only meet immediate infrastructure needs but also align with broader business objectives, security imperatives, technological aspirations and environmental responsibilities,” he says. “Additionally, IaaS fosters rapid innovation by providing access to a range of infrastructure resources. Advanced capabilities within IaaS, such as artificial

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By opting for IaaS, companies enjoy several platform benefits such as added security, improved performance, added storage capabilities and more that have a knock-on effect on improving the overall customer experience. “

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