Cloud Computing & Storage

Comparing on-premises with cloud and colocation

Here, Pulsant provides an overview of 'on-premises', cloud and colocation to help businesses that are looking to expand their digital infrastructure that will aid the success of the businesses in years to come. When it comes to digital infrastructure, deciding between utilising either ‘on-premises’ or cloud remains a divide amongst all business decision makers - and both sides have their benefits, depending on which way you look at it. Cloud, for example, its often believed to be a runaway success. The UK Regulator, Ofcom, produced a report into the domestic cloud service market and noted that the UK cloud infrastructure market is expanding, with overall revenues increasing from a rate of 35% to 40% annually. Despite that, Synergy analysts have discovered that by 2027, enterprise data centres will still account for more than a quarter of data centre capacity. This year, there were 350 UK IT leaders involved in a 2024 research project, which recorded 93% of its respondents who have been involved with a cloud repatriation project in the last three years. Furthermore, 25% of those businesses have already migrated half or more of their cloud-based workloads back to an ‘on-premises’ infrastructure. However, for many businesses, especially those experiencing growth, SMEs and medium-sized enterprises, the reality is there are two types of ‘on-premises’ infrastructures. Some businesses (usually within technology) will host their own data internally within their own data centre, while there are others that will host their entire IT infrastructure within their own office. The latter group of companies are often seeking solutions to manage their servers and treat it as a critical asset which they need to protect. Migrating to serviced offices Businesses that are experiencing growth or are already at a medium-sized level, tend to be already discussing their next steps. Usually driven by the increase in energy prices, higher borrowing, operational costs, and evolving work patterns, they tend to reassess their property portfolios. One focus has been the migration to serviced offices. Lambert Smith Hampton, a commercial property specialist, cites the following Mordor Intelligence forecasting which says that, “The UK market will grow by 8% per year during 2022-27.” There also been an “exceptional rise in demand”, for flexible offices in the UK, according to Savills reports. It also highlights that the increased demand has led to an increase in prices by 15%, and enquiries are also up by 17%. Despite that, issues have begun to arise with serviced offices. With critical business technology being operated within a shared space, restrictions have emerged. Firstly, serviced offices are rarely equipped with the necessary infrastructure and connectivity to host high-growth company needs. The power supply is shared throughout the entire building and can therefore be insufficient. Also, connectivity options and data management capabilities tend to be at a bare minimum. Shared offices also lack the necessary physical and cyber security assets. With the demand in costs, a serviced office typically has less physical security than a data centre and on-site staff aren’t comprehensively trained in cybersecurity. From a technological perspective, serviced offices are more vulnerable to cyber-attacks because they use less secure connections to keep the costs low. Finally, serviced offices have limited space for businesses looking to grow. By having a limitation on room-size, this can restrict business attempts to scale their IT infrastructure, because their office operators need to prioritise space for furniture etc. Colocation data centre When it comes to digital infrastructure, serviced offices often bring challenges for high-growth businesses. It is difficult for them to operate their own, expensive property facility or carry their ever-expanding infrastructure with them. On the other hand, businesses can experience a lack of control over their own technologies, so are forced to reduce their control over systems and key processes. Then there is the case of growth not being a ‘one time deal’ for businesses. It goes beyond legacy on-site strategies, expansions and adapting their infrastructure with every opening of a new facility. With a colocation centre, businesses can move their IT infrastructure, while focusing on their growth and agility. Firstly, businesses can exploit a flexible office space to move, optimising their capital expenditure (CAPEX) investment and operational expenditure (OPEX), by acquiring the minimum they need. In context, this is often a complete migration to OPEX as businesses seek to release themselves of expensive liabilities. The increased agility can fuel businesses to expand their operations. They also receive reassurance of greater security, and as they evolve, their colocation partner can also advocate a wider range of suppliers in connectivity and ecosystems. Business operations can become more resilient as the colocations provides managed connectivity, power and cooling issues which can assist their sustainability concerns. The issue however for businesses, is finding the right colocation partner who are local to them, available for support across the UK and can deliver transparency at a reasonable price. However, once a business finds a suitable colocation supplier, than they can benefit by splitting their IT infrastructure into a dedicated colocation space and benefit with the best of both worlds. They can gain an optimal operation focus with more control over costs and greater flexibility to grow. Adopting an interconnected approach To optimise any IT infrastructure migration, businesses need to clarify their approach within the decision-making process. They can do that in five simple steps: Establish what the data is going to be used for and thus, the primary attributes in successfully managing it. Is speed of access the top concern? Or security? Or real-time analysis? Consider scalability, business continuity and disaster recovery. Define the technologies that will most effectively serve these key purposes. Technically, this means assessing space, power, cooling, and connectivity requirements and accounting for data volume, bandwidth, and downtime. Find and connect with suppliers in those spaces that are prepared to become real partners. In a digital, data-driven age, the software and infrastructure a business is built on matters. Tour facilities and develop service level agreements (SLAs). Develop a detailed migration plan that anticipates delays and establishes clear definitions of success. Install and configure hardware to achieve this, spanning routers, switches, firewalls, load balancers and virtualisation platforms and hypervisors if applicable. Keep an eye on the future: embracing data and taking steps towards managing and optimising it typically accelerates growth for a business. As such, businesses must ensure that any strategy to put the data in the right place now, does not mean it is in the wrong place tomorrow. For more, visit pulsant.com/colocation. For more from Pulsant, click here.

Cloud is key in scaling systems to your business needs

by Brian Sibley, Solutions Architect at Espria Meeting the demands of the modern-day SMB is one of the challenges facing many business leaders and IT operators today. Traditional, office-based infrastructure was fine up until the point where greater capacity was needed than those servers could deliver, vendor support became an issue, or the needs of a hybrid workforce weren’t being met. In the highly competitive SMB space, maintaining and investing in a robust and efficient IT infrastructure can be one of the ways to stay ahead of competitors. Thankfully, with the advent of cloud offerings, a new scalable model has entered the landscape; whether it be 20 or 20,000 users, the cloud will fit all and with it comes a much simpler, per user cost model. This facility to integrate modern computing environments in the day-to-day workplace means businesses can now stop rushing to catch up, and with this comes the invaluable peace of mind that these operations will scale up or down as required. Added to which, the potential cost savings and added value will better serve each business and help to future-proof the organisation, even when on a tight budget. Cloud service solutions are almost infinitely flexible, rather than traditional on-premises options, and won’t require in-house maintenance. When it comes to environmental impact and carbon footprint, data centres are often thought to be a threat, contributing to climate change; but in reality, cloud is a great option. The scalability of cloud infrastructure and the economies of scale they leverage facilitate not just cost but carbon savings too. Rather than a traditional model where a server runs in-house at 20% capacity, using power 24/7/365 and pumping out heat, cloud data centres are specifically designed to run and cater for multiple users more efficiently, utilising white space cooling, for example, to optimise energy consumption. When it comes to the bigger players like Microsoft and Amazon, they are investing heavily in sustainable, on-site energy generation to power their data centres; even planning to feedback excess power into the National Grid. Simply put, it’s more energy efficient for individual businesses to use a cloud offering than to run their own servers – the carbon footprint for each business using a cloud solution becomes much smaller. With many security solutions now being cloud based too, security doesn’t need to be compromised and can be managed remotely via SOC teams either in-house or via the security provider (where the resources are greater and have far more specialist expertise). Ultimately, a cloud services solution, encompassing servers, storage, security and more, will best service SMBs. It’s scalable, provides economies of scale and relieves in-house IT teams from many mundane yet critical tasks, allowing them to focus on more profitable activities. For more from Espria, click here.

Vertiv opens a new manufacturing facility and test lab in India

Vertiv has announced the opening of a new manufacturing facility in Pune, India. The opening was to meet the surging demand for data centres and supporting infrastructure solutions globally, including India and the APAC region. The new plant manufactures thermal management products and solutions tailored for colocation, cloud, telecom, and enterprise data centres, catering to both domestic and international markets. This is Vertiv’s third facility in India, joining with existing manufacturing facilities in Ambernath and Pune. Spanning 4.8 acres (210,000ft2), the facility supports the manufacturing of cooling solutions ranging from 200W to 2MW+, including adiabatic free cooling chillers, large custom air handling units (AHU), thermal wall units, a new range of large direct expansion (DX), packaged DX, free cooling with economiser units, a new range of in-row cooling units, wall mount units, and rack cooling systems. The facility also boasts state-of-the-art psychometric labs, providing performance testing, a customer experience centre, and design support capabilities. It is located in an India Green Building Council (IGBC) compliant park focusing on sustainability and reducing environmental impact. CEO of Vertiv, Giordano (Gio) Albertazzi, says, “With increasing global digitalisation and the rapid adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the data centre industry is experiencing growth and a demand for more capacity, including for data centre thermal and power infrastructure. India’s emergence as a data centre hub in the APAC region is a key reason that we built this third manufacturing facility in India, and it reinforces our commitment to nurturing the country’s data centre ecosystem while also addressing global demand.”

Crusoe announces data centre expansion with atNorth in Iceland

atNorth, a Nordic colocation, high-performance computing, and artificial intelligence service provider has announced its collaboration with Crusoe Energy Systems to collocate Crusoe Cloud GPUs in atNorth’s ICE02 data centre in Iceland. This is Crusoe’s first project in Europe and the partnership advances Crusoe’s mission to align the future of computing with the future of the climate. It plans to do this by powering Crusoe’s high-performance computing infrastructure with clean energy sources. “I’m thrilled that our quest to source low carbon power has led us to Iceland,” says Cully Cavness, Crusoe’s Co-Founder and President. “This partnership with atNorth allows us to bring the concentrated energy demand of compute infrastructure directly to the source of clean, renewable geothermal and hydro energy.” “It is very important to atNorth that we are collaborating with companies that share our approach to sustainability,” says E. Magnús Kristinsson, CEO of atNorth. “Crusoe’s commitment to maximise their compute while minimising their environmental impact made them a perfect fit.” The atNorth ICE02 site leverages more than 80MW of power, benefiting from the sustainable geothermal and hydro energy produced in Iceland. The country also benefits from low latency networks and fully redundant connectivity to customer bases in North America and Europe via multiple undersea fibre optic cables.  “AI and machine learning are driving the demand for data centres to grow at a record rate,” says Chris Dolan, Chief Data Centre Officer of Crusoe. “We’re excited about our initial commitment to atNorth and look forward to potentially expanding capacity even more in the future.”  The news follows atNorth’s recent acquisition of Gompute, a provider of High Performance Computing (HPC) and data centre services, and the announcement of three new sites: FIN04 in Kouvola, Finland; FIN02 in Helsinki, Finland; and DEN01 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Neterra launches Startup Accelerator program

Neterra has initiated Startup Accelerator program with the aim of nurturing and supporting start-ups. Under this program, it is providing complimentary or substantially reduced services encompassing cloud, colocation, connectivity and cyber security. The neterra.cloud offering is built on cutting-edge Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum processors, offering unlimited data traffic and scalable enterprise-class storage solutions. This package also includes free backup, disaster recovery solutions, and DDoS protection for the initial six months. In a bid to further assist innovative start-ups, it grants access to colocation services in its Tier III+ data centres, including EU based Sofia Data Center 1 (SDC 1), Sofia Data Center 2 (SDC 2), SDC Stolnik, and SDC Ruse, coupled with their high-quality carrier-grade connectivity and global internet exchange through the NetIX platform. For the first six months, Neterra covers the expenses, while start-ups are responsible for their electricity costs. Following this initial period, the global telecom extends discounted colocation services starting at starting at 12 euros/1U rack unit/month. Additionally, Neterra is extending consultancy services to program beneficiaries, offering expertise in network architecture, hardware and software recommendations, configuration, best practices, and managed services for cloud, application servers, hosting providers, and more. The current start-up support program is a continuation of its longstanding commitment to assisting start-ups, a tradition that has been upheld since the company's inception nearly three decades ago. Back then, it played a pivotal role in helping numerous internet providers launch and prosper.  In more recent times, Neterra has demonstrated its dedication to supporting start-ups, as exemplified by its involvement with ucha.se, an online learning platform. Founder of ucha.se, Darin Madzharov, crossed paths with Neven Dilkov, Founder of Neterra, through a mentoring program aimed at nurturing and guiding young talents. In the early stages of development, it extended its support by offering complimentary services during the initial months.

Salesforce standardises global hybrid cloud infrastructure

Red Hat has announced that Salesforce is standardising its global hybrid cloud infrastructure on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Helping the company to drive business transformation at scale to meet customer demand, Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides a more flexible and consistent foundation for security enhanced hybrid cloud deployments. The platform enables Salesforce to free up valuable developer resources, while at the same time consolidating IT systems, all helping to generate better business outcomes for customers.  Salesforce is a customer-centric, innovation-driven provider of cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) systems, using a SaaS model to support a robust customer base. Over the years, Salesforce has continued to grow and evolve its offerings to incorporate breakthrough technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), automated self-service tools and real-time data insights to support customer business needs. In doing so, Salesforce relies on a massive IT footprint that spans hundreds of thousands of systems running in traditional data centre environments and in hyperforce, its platform architecture designed for the public cloud. With the migration, Salesforce intends to gain even more efficiency in its IT operations, enhancing developer productivity and fuelling greater innovation across the customer experience. Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers the necessary stability for modern IT workloads and enterprise-grade hybrid cloud deployments, enabling organisations to run applications anywhere while providing ease of management across on-premises and cloud environments. By migrating its global infrastructure from CentOS Linux to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Salesforce seeks to realise key benefits such as: Optimised performance and efficiency across various hardware and software architectures, including ARM, which enables Salesforce engineering teams to more easily adopt breakthrough technologies without incurring new infrastructure demands. Meeting customers where they are with a hardened platform that can drive more consistent innovation across the hybrid cloud, from the data centre to public clouds to the edge, with the capacity to support unique customer use cases regardless of location or scale. Improved system security measures with Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s layered approach to IT environment security, including support for many of the latest cryptographic and secure computing innovations. Enhanced customer support experiences through Red Hat’s support team, enabling Salesforce engineering to focus on delivering customer value without being bogged down in the minutiae of managing an operating system at cloud-scale.

Busting cloud myths and embracing the advantages

By Josh Boer, Vice President of Sales at VeUP The modern workforce is swiftly embracing digitisation, driven in large part by the pandemic's influence on remote work adoption and the demand for streamlined supply chains. As we move forward, worldwide public cloud end-user spending, forecasted by Gartner, is set to soar to nearly $600bn in 2023, surpassing the $491bn spent in 2022. From global corporations to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the adoption of cloud computing is becoming a cornerstone for operational modernisation and securing a competitive edge. However, in the midst of this transformative journey, some concerns about cloud security have risen. In fact, over half of IT and security leaders admit to lacking confidence in their organisations' ability to verify cloud environment security, while others express fears of exposing critical data to cyber threats. Is the cloud secure for SMEs? Clearing the fog of uncertainty around cloud security is pivotal to instil confidence in businesses. SMEs often worry that storing data in the cloud sacrifices their control over its management and security. Contrary to this notion, cloud providers offer 24/7 data access and provide scalable tools for protection. Security features, including comprehensive monitoring systems and data safeguarding, are fundamental aspects of cloud security. The truth is, businesses retain control over their data even after migration to the cloud. While the choice of a cloud provider doesn't dictate all aspects of data storage and security, customers have full access to their information and the autonomy to make decisions regarding its protection. Depending on specific features and services employed, encryption methods and data classification can be tailored to individual needs. Cloud maturity: trusting the evolution The belief that cloud computing is too new to trust is another misconception. While AWS debuted in 2004, nearly two decades of evolution have transformed it into a global cloud leader, boasting an array of over 200 comprehensive services accessible through data centres worldwide. Serving clients from startups to government entities, AWS has nurtured a user base that relies on its platform to enhance agility, drive down costs, and expedite innovation. In this context, SMEs can tap into a suite of tailored services catering to their unique organisational requirements. Estimates from Synergy Research Group revealed that Amazon’s market share in the worldwide cloud infrastructure market stood at 32% in the second quarter of 2023, down from 34% a year ago, but still above its rivals Microsoft and Google. While short-term economic challenges and belt-tightening measures may impact spending on cloud services, the resilience and customer-centric approach of AWS provides assurance. Its proven track record of commitment to building strong customer relationships also highlights its ability to weather economic downturns and thrive in the long run. Harnessing cloud benefits for SMEs Amplifying business agility: Cloud technology empowers SMEs to swiftly navigate market shifts through scalable resources. Leveraging cloud solutions, SMEs can pivot operations, seize new opportunities, and employ cloud-enabled disaster recovery and backup strategies to weather disruptions with minimal downtime. Trimming legacy IT expenses: Contrary to the misconception that cloud migration is costly and unnecessary, cloud computing dramatically reduces IT infrastructure costs. By eliminating the need for physical hardware and infrastructure management, cloud computing shifts costs to the cloud service provider, enabling businesses to pay only for the resources they use. Empowering remote accessibility: Cloud solutions facilitate remote work by providing seamless access to applications and data from anywhere with an internet connection. This not only fosters a culture of remote collaboration, but also reduces the necessity for physical office spaces, utilities, and commuting expenses, yielding additional cost savings. As the world emerges from the pandemic and businesses ponder the return to physical workplaces, cloud computing, which proved instrumental in enabling remote work during the crisis, continues to be pivotal. Facilitating hybrid work models, cloud computing ensures consistent access to collaborative tools, documents, and data, striking a balance between productivity, collaboration, and employee preferences. Fostering an evergreen technology landscape: Cloud services enable SMEs to maintain an evergreen technology stack by harnessing continuous updates and innovations without the burdens of costly and time-consuming hardware upgrades. This transformative approach keeps technology consistently cutting-edge, fostering resilient and forward-looking IT infrastructures free from the constraints of physical hardware's lifecycle. Closing thoughts As discussions of the return to physical offices grow louder, and the impending news that cloud costs are expected to increase by 10% this year, it's critical to address these concerns and shed light on the truths of cloud security. The shift to the cloud remains more than a trend - it's a seismic transformation affording SMEs capabilities to enhance their overall competitiveness and efficiency, facilitating unified communications across the board and cutting down expenses over the likes of IT infrastructure maintenance costs. Click here for more latest news.

Nasuni and Presidio expand partnership and sign multi-year agreement

Presidio has announced an extensive partnership with Nasuni. Nasuni is optimising AWS Cloud use and reducing OpEX with Presidio’s proactive recapture into savings management (PRISM) program. In addition, Nasuni has signed a multi-year business agreement to simplify how companies store, protect and manage file data in hybrid cloud environments. A top concern of CIOs is cost optimisation according to industry analysts. To better monitor cloud spending, reduce financial risk and operational burden for its cloud and finance teams, Nasuni is leveraging Presidio’s fully managed PRISM program. Presidio manages cost optimisation and uses proprietary data science models to automatically scale cloud commitments up or down on behalf of customers at no risk to them. With its managed services taking care of operational management of Nasuni’s file data cloud environment, its team is saving time and able to focus on enhancing the Nasuni product and new innovative features. Organisations are looking to move their legacy file storage infrastructure to the cloud to centralise control of and make files easily accessible on premises or in the cloud globally to strategically use data and optimise productivity. With the Nasuni File Data Platform’s intelligent edge caching, customers can leverage the power of cloud object storage while maintaining local performance, which can translate into reduced storage costs by 60% over legacy storage as well as the ability to recover from ransomware attacks in minutes. Presidio’s team of technical experts can help customers better manage their file data environment with Nasuni in a hybrid cloud environment through any or multiple cloud providers. Click here for more latest news.

Cubbit has announced the appointment of two data storage world veterans to its executive team: Richard Czech as Chief Revenue Officer and Enrico Signoretti as VP, Product & Partnerships.   The expansion of the leadership team reinforces the company’s goals around international growth and the realisation of strategic market opportunities in cloud and edge computing. This news follows the launch of Cubbit’s international advisory board, consisting of initial members, Nicolas Ott, Alec Ross and Mikko Suonenlahti.  Richard Czech, the new CRO, has more than 30 years of experience as an entrepreneur and key executive in the storage industry. For the past six years, he was VP EMEA of Sales at Wasabi Technologies, where he led the European go-to-market strategy from startup to unicorn, growing the partner network from zero to thousands and selling hundreds of PB of storage, when it was valued at over $1bn. Prior to Wasabi, he held key positions such as the European Sales Executive for DataXion, CEO of Lightsand Communications, VP of Technology, EMEA at ADIC, and Founder and President of InterBackup.  In his role as Chief Revenue Officer for Cubbit, Richard’s unique experience will lend itself to driving business growth by taking a holistic approach in overseeing the entire revenue cycle, with the alignment of teams, operations and systems, around the customer experience in the go-to market process.  Enrico Signoretti has over 30 years of experience in the IT industry, having held various roles including IT manager, consultant, head of product strategy, IT analyst, and advisor. He is an internationally renowned visionary author, blogger and speaker on next-generation technologies. Over the past four years, Enrico has kept his finger on the pulse of the evolving storage industry as the Head of Research Product Strategy at GigaOm. He has worked closely and built relationships with top visionaries, CTOs, and IT decision makers worldwide. Enrico has also contributed to leading global online sites, with over 40 million readers for enterprise technology news.  Enrico will be drawing upon his vast experience to contribute towards the technical vision, initiatives and strategy of Cubbit’s DS3 solution and the overall business goals, as well as expanding the company’s network of strategic partners, fostering relationships with leading industry players. 

InterCloud offers Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud availability

InterCloud has announced that it is adding connectivity to Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud in Madrid and Frankfurt, as it responds to the increasing demand for customers with EU operations to gain greater control over where their data and workloads are stored. These two new Points of Presence for the company represent an important step, given customers are battling to establish control against a constantly evolving regulatory landscape. This comes as part of its strategic partnership with Oracle and status as a FastConnect partner since 2018, and follows the official announcement of Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud in June. As InterCloud is Europe’s SDCI provider, customers connecting to Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud will have access to unrivalled cloud connectivity capabilities, flexibility and regulatory expertise, helping them navigate the complexity of modern cloud environments and multi-cloud arrangements, while embracing new technologies. Coupled with its position to be able to configure and manage end-to-end connectivity, the move ensures that the company continues to support enterprises in overcoming specific challenges across a wide range of industries and markets. Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud offers additional advantages to customers compared to the commercial public cloud. The same applications and workloads can run in it as in the public cloud, but additional features ensure meeting EU data privacy requirements, while maintaining both physical and logical isolation from non-EU cloud regions. Mourad Elmalki, CISO at InterCloud, says, “Privacy, security and control over where data is located are some of the most significant concerns for businesses and governments when it comes to adopting cloud technology. These concerns are particularly pressing given the growing prevalence of multi-cloud arrangements. “One of the key features of the InterCloud platform is that it enables organisations to choose where their data will be transiting, and can apply encryption if necessary. This means organisations can ensure data remains within specific geographic frameworks depending on individual needs. Additionally, the InterCloud solution is designed with robust security measures in place to protect data from unauthorised access or breaches. “We’re glad to be providing Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud availability as part of the InterCloud offering, and believe it will be important in helping grow our business further in the future.”