Outsource Issue 22 - (Page 77)

feature Cloud Computing The cloud: renewing the importance of service for IT outsourcers Silver lining Martin Schneider, SugarCRM Martin Schneider is Senior director of communications, SugarcRM. Martin handles competitive intelligence, marketing positioning and press/analyst relations; he was previously news editor with CRM Magazine in New York T he emergence of cloud computing has had many providers of IT outsourcing solutions worried. It raises the question: will the availability of cheap, easy-to-deploy infrastructure-as-aservice solutions spell economic ruin for some firms? In some situations, such as outsourcers providing little value save for building and managing bland environments for customers; the cloud is a serious threat. However, for those outsourcers building valuable solutions for their customers, the cloud presents nothing but opportunity. the actual pieces of technology that will help their customers differentiate and win in their respective markets. To use an often overdone analogy: the outsourcer can use the cloud as a company does the electricity grid. Just as light and power are afterthoughts in terms of running the business, the cloud brings an opportunity for outsourcers and their customers to take for granted the underlying technology stack, and focus solely on the portions of IT unique to their business. Service over technology The cloud allows outsourcers to reinvent themselves as a new type of service provider. By leveraging the ubiquity of public clouds such as Amazon or Rackspace, outsourcers can lower their own costs and focus on deeply custom solutions for their customers. What’s more, by leveraging highly available and standard cloud platforms, the maintenance and upgrade processes for customers’ solutions can become less of an issue. Fewer downtimes and seamless upgrades in turn can improve the perception of service levels and the value provided by the outsourcer. In short, the outsourcer is in a way outsourcing the platform and infrastructure and instead focusing solely on Private clouds provide unique service opportunities While most of the attention around cloud computing has focused on public cloud environments such as Amazon or Rackspace, “private clouds” serving an individual or small group of organisations are growing in popularity. This trend in itself offers up strong opportunities for outsourcers. Think of it this way: a large organisation sees the cost and maintenance benefits of the cloud, but simply has privacy and other data issues that prevent them from porting their IT architectures into public cloud environments. Instead, these organisations may opt to run their IT stack as a private cloud, leveraging virtualisation and scalable compute power – only on a smaller scale. Many companies frankly lack the experience and expertise to create, manage and optimise a cloud environment themselves. This presents a strong opportunity for IT outsourcers to create flexible private cloud solutions for these organisations. The result: the outsourcer’s customer strips away inefficiency in its IT operations, without needing to manage the cloud environment. What does an outsourced private cloud look like? Well, thanks to open source and other cloud technologies, an IT outsourcer could convert a portion of its data centre towards “dedicated private clouds” which would occupy limited iron and real server space, but offer scalable, dedicated cloud-based solutions for an outsourcer’s customers. Think of it as the next level of the appliance, where entire dedicated IT stacks are run offsite, managed by the outsourcer, but offer high availability and scale at an attractive price point. Summing up The cloud is certainly changing the way we look at IT infrastructure in both large and small organisations. The cloud offers myriad efficiencies from both a cost and management perspective – and these efficiencies do not necessarily lock out the outsourcer. Whether it be public or private clouds, opportunity abounds if you know how to take advantage. Consendre mod eugait alit luptati sisisisit augait num iusti facidunt ipsumsan el eraestrud exerat ad onulla cor ing eumsandre ex elit @GregKinsey: Funny how “utility computing” morphed into “on-demand”, which morphed into “cloud computing”...what’s next? atetue tet ulla feu feum niamconEm ea commodiam ad tem dolortio Utat lum quisim et, quissi.Volobore m iurero dolobore. www.outsourcemagazine.co.uk ● ●● ● 77  http://www.outsourcemagazine.co.uk

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Outsource Issue 22

Outsource Issue 22
Table of Contents
Shutting the Door?
Q&A: Deborah Kops
Colombia
LPO
Editorial Board Roundtable
Head-to-Head
HR Trends
Long Live AMS!
The Provider Perspective
Platforms Make Sense in the Cloud!
NOA Pathway
Case Study: King’s College Hospital
Egypt
Silver Lining
Roundtable Write-Up
Case Study: Nokia & Hyphen
Alan Leaman
Leah Cooper
Kay Formanek
Paul Awcock
News & Comment
The Legal View
NOA Roundup
Online Roundup
Letter to the CEO
Letters to the Editor
Sourcebites
Inside Source
The Last Word

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