More businesses turning to the cloud for IT outsourcing
Cloud computing is becoming a key part of enterprise operations. As a result, it is beginning to play a major role in the IT outsourcing sector, with more companies adopting private cloud hosting and other cloud-based solutions, Smart Business reported.
In an interview with the news source, industry expert Christian Teeft said the rising popularity of cloud hosting is a natural evolution of the IT outsourcing industry as a whole. Many businesses begin by outsourcing IT management, without moving the equipment off premise. The trust developed in this type of relationship often leads companies to evaluate the advantages of colocation, where the hardware is moved to a third-party facility. This then evolves to managed services and, eventually, to the cloud.
Teeft told Smart Business this trend toward more robust data center and IT outsourcing programs stems, to a great extent, from a pervasive interest to shift costs to operational spending. With fewer IT resources maintained on premise or managed by the company, businesses will be able to get by spending less on capital investments in hardware. This means that more robust outsourcing strategies turn capital spending into operational spending, making the process more attractive for businesses. Each step of the IT outsourcing evolution has the potential to follow this trend, with the cloud at the top of this list.
Easier maintenance is proving to be another key contributor to the increased popularity of managed services and cloud hosting plans, Teeft said.
"In a traditional on premise or colocation environment, organizations require a full team on hand - IT personnel skilled in maintaining and optimizing their own equipment. Managed hosting and cloud solutions enable organizations to rely on the provider’s technology expertise, reducing total cost of ownership and allowing precious IT resources to focus on the business," Teeft told the news source.
One of the greatest concerns businesses face when outsourcing IT systems to the cloud is the potential loss of control over IT environments. Teeft, however, believes this is not that big of an issue. He told Smart Business that traditional IT setups give businesses complete control over all the hardware and configurations of their systems. They do all the maintenance, manage systems and can carefully align the hardware to their needs. However, their infrastructure dictates their application resources and limits their agility.
Cloud computing, on the other hand, prevents businesses from having the same level of control of their hardware systems, but gives them access to such an elastic IT environment that they can freely provision new systems and applications to meet their needs at any time, Teeft told the news source.
Academic institutions are positioned particularly well to take advantage of the growing popularity of cloud hosting services. According to a recent Campus Technology report, a growing number of colleges and universities are turning to the cloud in an effort to improve their operational efficiency and reduce spending. While these private cloud systems can be built into premise-based data centers, the news source said outsourcing to a private cloud hosting provider gives academic institutions access to robust cloud infrastructure while simplifying maintenance and management. Essentially, they get to leverage many of the key benefits of the private cloud without having to deal with the security concerns associated with a multi-tenant server environment.
This has spurred more schools to look into robust technologies that allow them to improve education. This is leading to significant technological innovation in the sector and creating significant demand for more powerful IT services among colleges and universities.
