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Are you moving to an Infrastructure as a Service IT model?
As a CIOs do you need to own the IT estate of your organisation? The current economy and increasing business competition is calling for a new approach to infrastructure decisions, CIOs today find themselves at a junction with regard to how they deploy resources. As organisations change their approach to markets, so CIOs may need to consider re-evaluating their infrastructure directions. Turning towards cloud computing and applications delivered as a service could well be the answer, come and join our CIO debate
Or, if you are involved in the email sector and would like to write an article on the future of email, send your thoughts to Mark Chillingworth, editor of CIO.co.uk at mark_chillingworth@idg.co.uk.
For all the vagaries of IT services, traditional IT outsourcing has always been quite tangible - servers, datacentres, networks, specifications, man-hours, lines of code. However, the rise of cloud computing is changing all of that with flexible, asset-free IT services available on an as-needed basis for more aspects of enterprise technology.
Cloud services are a boon for many IT departments willing to forego customisation: They help IT organisations chip away at hefty capital expenditures from back-end infrastructure to customer-facing software and everything in between.
Consequently, the cloud is turning the traditional IT services industry on its head.
"Cloud computing represents a fundamental shift in how companies pay for and access IT services," says Susan Tan, IT services and sourcing research director for Gartner.
In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2012, 20 per cent of businesses will own virtually no IT assets. That will be a game changer-for better or worse-for outsourcing vendors of all stripes, from traditional onshore and offshore IT service providers and consultants to system integrators and new, niche vendors.
"If [the] cloud was only about gutting the clunky, expensive and environmentally-unfriendly infrastructure, and having Amazon and company deliver the computing power, then it's really just an infrastructure utility offering," says Phil Fersht, founder of outsourcing consultancy Horses for Sources. "However, if you're going to have your data and applications hosted externally in the cloud, do you really need to manage them yourself anymore? Do you really gain a competitive edge with the way you process your insurance claims, or isn't it time to find a services vendor that will host the app, the associated infrastructure and even process the transactions for you?"
Fersht calls cloud services the foundation for next-generation enterprise sourcing solutions. He believes cloud services will make traditional delivery of IT services more efficient and cost-effective. "They also help create a delivery mechanism for true business process services," he adds. "This new class of [outsourcing] has the potential to unlock tremendous value for customers."
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Nigel Boyle | Published: 14:13 GMT, 21 February 2012
There is much talk about cloud reducing cost, however with a play on a calculator it is clear that a company with more than one site will save a fortune over 10 years by having their own servers, backed up on their second site. The margin earned by cloud companies has to be paid for somehow! I strongly advise that you check beyond the first few years before signing!