At the same time, they can also benefit from the kinds of flexibility that can otherwise be very difficult if not impossible to acquire. Companies such as retailers which need to accommodate seasonal increases and decreases in business are a prime example, as are film companies which might need intensive compute power to finish a big budget movie but then may not need it again for weeks or months at a time.
Consolidation and cloud
“We’re also seeing governments which are typically slow to move, quite bureaucratic and typically have small data centres all operating independently looking toward cloud-delivered services. They can literally consolidate and move to cloud environment and make big savings,” said Wallage.
“The US government, for example, is looking to save 20% of its IT budget by moving towards the cloud, and some people have even estimated that the saving could be as high as 80% depending on how it’s done.”
Security has been an issue, and our view is that the risks around cloud security are reducing, certainly in relation to private cloud. That’s where this trust factor is coming into play. It’s something that people increasingly see as safe and viable, Michael O’Dwyer, Bearing Point
The Irish public sector is slowly embracing cloud services according to Michael O’Dwyer, head of Bearing Point’s IT strategy and transformation team.
Speed and cost
“Over the last couple of years, cloud-delivered services have become more established and more mainstream. It’s no longer confusing in terms of how they work and what they offer. In particular, companies and governments understand that there can be cost savings from the point of view of infrastructure and increased speed in relation to application rollout,” he said.
Bearing Point completed a project with the Department of Social Protection last year when the government offered a grant of €100 per person with a strict timeline on claiming the payment.
“We put up a public web site where you could register your details and in the background we set up a system where we took those details and made a payment to the citizen. The Department of Social Protection used print facilities from Revenue and text confirmations through Vodafone,” said O’Dwyer.
“Underneath that we did the back office work using Microsoft Azure. The application was in the cloud, but all the citizen data was held behind a firewall by the Department of Social Protection. The advantage to this was that it was fast and could be turned around quickly.
Rent capacity
“They didn’t need to buy infrastructure — they could just rent it from Microsoft. This was important because we weren’t able to predict the demand we would get from citizens – for example would the entire country want to log in on day one or would demand be spread out?”
By renting the capacity needed to service the demand, the staff behind the project were able to rent additional capacity when there was a spike in demand, with the infrastructure expanding to meet that demand.
“Having done that and gained confidence from it, the Department of Social Protection is looking at other opportunities that cloud services will enable for them, and that’s a common story around government,” said O’Dwyer.
“Security has been an issue, and our view is that the risks around cloud security are reducing, certainly in relation to private cloud. That’s where this trust factor is coming into play. It’s something that people increasingly see as safe and viable as they dip their toes in the water with low-risk applications. I think things are likely to continue as they are – there will be other factors that will come into play.”
Subscribers 0
Fans 0
Followers 0
Followers