public cloud: trends and considerations for businessidc’s predictions show saas as being the major...

Public Cloud: Trends and Considerations for Business

Cloud Services

Cloud services are computing and other software services that are typically provided by an external service provider and made available to users via the Internet.

Table of contents

010203040506

Introduction

Public Cloud for Business

Telkom | Business Connexion - Value Proposition

The Telkom | Business Connexion Key Differentiators

Glossary of terms

01 © Telkom | Business Connexion 2016

Telkom | Business Connexion as a Provider of Public Cloud Services

What are Cloud Services?

These services are provided off IT (Information Technology) infrastructure that is installed in centralised data centres and then offered “as a service” to individuals and businesses.

Public cloud services are those services where companies share the infrastructure that resides in the external service provider’s data centres, while private cloud services are where a company makes use of infrastructure that is dedicated for their use.

The traditional model of providing computing or software services to multiple users was for a business to install computer servers in its own data centre and then to make those services available to its users over the company’s network. The emerging model is for companies to use services provided by a 3rd party and accessed through the Internet, or in the cloud.

Growth in Cloud Services

The Cisco Global Cloud Index1 projects that cloud will grow to represent 76% of total data centre traffic by 2018 and that private cloud usage will grow to 31% of all cloud workloads in that same year.

The Everest Group, in reviewing global cloud service engagements, also forecasts a growth in cloud adoption and estimates a 23% to 27% annual compound growth in global service engagements2. In its view, private cloud services represent approximately 40% of this market and public cloud services approximately 33%, with the balance comprised of cloud-related professional and management services.

This growth is being driven by large enterprises recognising the benefits of cloud services. Says the Everest Group: “Our research indicates that enterprise cloud adoption is increasing as buyers realise the cost savings, flexibility and resilience of the cloud.”

Models of Cloud Service: Private, Public and Hybrid Cloud Services

One of the important discussions around cloud services is whether enterprises should make use of private or public cloud services and the benefits or risks of either model. While consumers and smaller organisations are more likely to make a complete move to public cloud services, a large enterprise is more likely to consider the “hybrid cloud” model, using a combination of public and private cloud services to suit its business models and IT strategies.

Types of Cloud Services: IaaS, PaaS and SaaS

Cloud services can also take many forms. The commonly used term of “as a service” describes the various domains in cloud services and is mostly used in the following areas, each providing an indication of the nature of the end-service that is offered in the cloud.

Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas)

IaaS includes servers, networks, storage, operating systems and is used to allow companies to self-provision scalable infrastructure services on demand.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

PaaS includes operating systems and middleware and is used for the rapid development and deployment of applications.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

SaaS includes software applications (marketing, sales, operations, collaboration, etc.) and is used to provide software over the Internet to end-users.

01Introduction


1 Cisco® Global Cloud Index (2013 – 2018), November 2014

2 Everest Group, Enterprise Cloud Services – Annual Report 2015: ‘Contracting Remains Cloudy’, April 2015

“Our research indicates that enterprisecloud adoption is increasing as buyers realise the cost savings, flexibility and

resilience of the cloud”

Everest Group, Enterprise Cloud Services Annual Report,

2015

04© Telkom | Business Connexion 2016

Considerations

The overall benefits of cloud services for businesses need to be considered in the process of evaluating public cloud services. Some of the standard business benefits that are mentioned for cloud services are:

• Flexibility / agility / scalability • Self-provisioning of services / on-demand capability• Resource sharing / cost efficiency• Service accessibility / multi-channel access / geographical access• Monitoring, reporting and optimisation of service usage

In evaluating the potential for public cloud services, businesses will need to consider both internal and external factors that will help them determine the extent to which they should make use of public cloud services and the correct timing and approach for adopting or migrating to those services.

In a 2013 report on the South African cloud and related services market5, IDC summarised the issues affecting cloud in the South African market. Some of these included the following:

• The high level of maturity of IT adoption• The acceptance of the outsourcing delivery model in South Africa• Reducing costs of public cloud services • The cost and quality of local and international bandwidth• Security

While reviewing these benefits and considerations, it is important to note that the approach to public cloud services and the benefits of those services will differ based on the size of the organisation and the complexity of its IT environment. SMEs are expected to more easily adopt available applications in the SaaS model, while large businesses are more likely to consider the benefits of scalable infrastructure on demand (IaaS), and the opportunity for using cloud for software development and testing through PaaS.

02Public Cloud for Business

Public Cloud Growth

According to IDC’s Worldwide Semi-annual Public Cloud Services Tracker3, public cloud services will account for more than half of worldwide software, server and storage spending growth by 2018. In terms of SaaS, IaaS and PaaS, IDC’s predictions show SaaS as being the major contributor to public cloud services:

“IDC expects software as a service (SaaS) will continue to dominate public IT cloud services spending, accounting for 70% of 2014 cloud services expenditures. This is largely because most customer demand is at the application level. The second largest public IT cloud services category will be infrastructure as a service (IaaS), boosted by cloud storage’s 31% CAGR over the forecast period. Platform as a service (PaaS) and cloud storage services will be the fastest growing categories, driven by major upticks in developer cloud services adoption and big data driven solutions, respectively.”4

Planning for Cloud Services

A business will need to have a clear understanding of how cloud services and its existing IT services are going to evolve in the future and how cloud-based services can be leveraged to take advantage of the additional capability, capacity, flexibility and efficiency that it can offer.

A further, important consideration in adopting a cloud strategy will be working with the right service provider who can cover a range of converged telecommunications, networks, Internet and cloud services and can work in partnership with organisations as they migrate to cloud services, and augment their cloud strategy with public cloud services.

3 IDC, Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Tracker, 2014

4 http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS25219014

Worldwide Public IT Cloud Services Spending by Segment (in $ billions)

Figure 1: Public IT Cloud Services Spending, IDC, 2014 to 2018

140

120

100

80

60

40

20

02014

$56.6

2018

$127.5

Platform as a Service

Software as a Service

Infrastructure as a Service

5 IDC, South Africa Cloud, Hosted, Managed, and Outsourcing Services Market, December 2013


Large Business / Enterprise Sector and Public Cloud

For large businesses, the nature of the public cloud services they are likely to use and the process of adopting or migrating to those services, are going to differ from smaller businesses. The likelihood of entrenched business processes and legacy systems in larger business means that migrating services to the public cloud will involve more diligence in the evaluation and planning of those changes.

A two-fold approach may be considered for large business:

• Carefully evaluating and planning legacy infrastructure environments that can be migrated to the public cloud, especially those that show potential significant improvements in cost, risk and flexibility goals.

• Looking for non-core or new environments that can be run directly off public cloud services, especially those that can support competitive advantage goals.

The transition path to public cloud services for large business will involve a considered process:

• Evaluating current infrastructure, systems and business processes to determine the feasibility of migrating them to Public Cloud

• Determining the non-core and speed-to-market opportunities for public cloud in the business environment

• Migrating business processes, systems, infrastructure and support resources to the new environment

• Conducting POCs (Proof of Concept) and, where applicable, continue running legacy services in parallel

• Implementing and testing new public cloud business opportunities

• Rolling out services on to the public cloud

IaaS for the Large Business / Enterprise Sector

IaaS is seen as a likely consideration for large businesses that are looking for alternative capacity to augment their infrastructure and improve the scalability of their business environment. This is commonly required for extending capacity in the areas of developing and testing software, high volume production environments and to support business continuity requirements.

Most businesses procure IaaS for either the benefits of the agile development environment or the standard benefits of sourcing more capacity and gaining the benefits of scalability and cost efficiency.

The potential benefits in IaaS for large businesses include the following:

• Acquire additional capacity to fulfil the demand for infrastructure services that will support development, production and DR (Disaster Recovery) environments

• Get access to virtual computers, storage, network and other infrastructure on which to deploy and run software and business applications

• Get billed according to resource usage – CPU, data storage, network, etc.

• Have more direct control over your services and software (as compared to SaaS)

• Outsource the management of physical hardware, virtualisation and cloud management tools

Paas for Large Business / Enterprise Sector

PaaS is seen as a likely consideration for large businesses that have their own software development and testing resources, or for other organisations that focus a lot of their effort on this domain.

The potential benefits of PaaS include the following:

• Rapid set-up of environments for web and mobile application development• On-demand access to testing environments• Access to database integration services• Get billed according to resource usage – users, hours, infrastructure utilisation, etc.• Outsource management for the platform infrastructure• Outsource other platform components such as middleware and database• Outsource the management of physical hardware, operating systems and storage• Maintain control over your applications in the PaaS environment

Saas for SME

While large businesses are more likely to adopt a hybrid private and public cloud approach, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) are more likely to adopt public cloud services, specifically SaaS.

SMEs’ priorities and resources are almost exclusively focused on acquiring and keeping clients, and on maintaining financial stability. As a result, they have fewer resources to dedicate to support functions and less time to investigate, build and deploy new business capabilities. They are looking for solutions that can be activated without spending too much time on preparation, testing and implementing new services.

According to BCSG6, in a survey of 600 companies in Western Europe, 78% of businesses indicated that they were considering purchasing new cloud solutions in the next 2-3 years, and the average number of applications being used was likely to grow from 3 to 7.

Some of the key application areas for SMEs are in the following areas:

• Financial Management o Bookkeeping o Expense management o Payroll

• Marketing and Customer Service Management o Customer Relationship Management (CRM) o Email campaigns o Social media management o Service desk

6 BCSG, The small business revolution: trends in SMB cloud adoption, 2015


• Collaboration and Management o Hosted email o Web conferencing o File sharing and backup o Productivity o Project management o Workforce management

Some of the benefits of SaaS include the following:

• Easily set up and scale users on business applications• Low upfront costs• Get billed according to resources used - end-users, hours, etc.• Outsource the full management of the software application and supporting infrastructure• Maintain control over user administration and the required application configuration capabilities• Support direct access to end-users or administer and manage users• Gain the benefits of higher adoption rates due to general familiarity with Internet applications• Outsource responsibility for upgrades and patch management

Acquiring Public Cloud Services

Sourcing or acquiring public cloud services requires an understanding of the types of service providers and the benefits of using local versus international service providers.

Using local providers for public cloud services has the benefits of lower bandwidth costs, improved performance, the ability to keep data in-country and the benefit of working with service providers that have the understanding and ability to meet local compliance requirements.

The USA’s Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has defined various roles in its cloud computing standards7. These are useful in understanding the contribution of various parties in the cloud delivery supply chain:

• Cloud provider – company that provides cloud services to end-users, including the infrastructure and network access requirements for cloud users

• Cloud carrier – company that provides connectivity and transport for cloud services

• Cloud broker – manages the use and performance of cloud services on behalf of cloud providers and offers value-added or aggregated cloud services, for example migration and deployment.

• Cloud auditor – conducts audit of the governance and security of the cloud environment against regulatory or industry audit and compliance standards.

It is always beneficial to separate the auditing function to ensure audit independence. However, there are benefits for businesses to have fewer interfaces and they should consider whether the provider of public cloud services can fulfil the functions of provider, carrier and broker.

In acquiring public cloud services, businesses should consider the proven capability of the service provider in managing infrastructure services, the role of the service provider in other IT and telecommunications services, as well as the benefits of having a single service provider for account management, service management and billing.

7 NIST Cloud Computing Standards Roadmap, 2013

03Telkom | Business Con-nexion as a Provider of Public Cloud ServicesServices Offered

Telkom Business Connexion is a provider of multiple services and is in a position to launch a range of public cloud services targeted at both the Large Enterprise and SME segments.

Public Cloud IaaS

Web Hosting• Windows• Linux

Microsoft Azure

Public Cloud SaaS

• Office 365• Hosted Exchange (Localised) • Exchange Online • Microsoft OneDrive• Delve Analytics• Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite• Mimecast Archiving• Mimecast Continuity• User ID Management• Spam Management• Intune• Microsoft Power BI• Microsoft Project• SharePoint Online• Visio• Skype for Business• Microsoft Yammer• Endpoint Intel MacAfee• International and local Domain name services

Future Services

SaaS• Desktop Backup• Server Backup• Office 365 Backup• Local File Sync and Share• Advanced Directory / Identity Sync• Windows 10


As Telkom | Business Connexion is in many cases an existing provider of mobile and fixed access services to businesses, extending cloud services into your business environment can be done through a single service provider.

The benefits of using Telkom | Business Connexion as a provider of public cloud services include the following:

• Affordability• Ease of buying• Single service provider for billing• Integrated IT and telecommunications services – cloud, network, converged access

04Telkom | Business Connex-ion - Value Proposition

Value proposition for utilising Telkom | Business Connexion as a public cloud provider

• On demand, self-provisioning

• Utility pricing

• Pre-Cloud assessments (desktop and Server)

• Internet access, no network set-up required

• Instant access to integrated software

• Data sovereignty, customer data stays in borders of South Africa

• No international bandwidth costs

• Latency improvement, traffic is kept in South Africa

• Public cloud built on international best practices with world leading hardware and software providers

• Security/PCI compliant public cloud platform

• Full activation and Migration of existing service into the cloud

• Manged services to manage tenants on ongoing bases

• Support on your terms

The virtualisation software on Telkom | Business Connexion’s public cloud platform ensures separation between customer environments, causing it to behave like physically separate environments. This ensures that every customer’s data is secure and cannot be accessed by other customers.

Immediate ResourcesNo need to wait on IT to provision

hardware

Data ResidencyChoice of where Data retained

Fast DeploymentAccelerated development

Agility and innovationQuickly move forward against

competition

Time to market

Choice of platformsSupport for Windows, Linux &

Community VM images

Flexible toolsChoice of cross-platform management

& development tools & frameworks

Cloud’s should live in the best Datacentres

Compute Close to consumption

Open & flexible

Reduce CostsNo need to invest in infrastructure

Pay as you goMatch usage with actual demand

Invest in other areasFree up capital for other uses

Service Level Agreements

in place

Economics


The Telkom | Business Connexion Key Differentiators

05Telkom | Business Connexion is one of the largest ICT services providers in Africa with a clear focus to serve the enterprise, public sector and SMB market segments both in South Africa and across Afri ca.

Our passion is to seamlessly connect every business towards a digital future. Our solutions are offered end to end — ensuring that your business benefits from every economy of scale and superior service quality.

Migrate your business into the digital future — contact Telkom | Business Connexion today!

Unmatched Data Centre and Network Infrastructure

3 Tier IV designed data centres, 147 000 km of fibre, 2 600 LTE and 3G base stations throughout South Africa.

Unrivaled ICT Solutions Set

Proven ICT capabilities, with market leadership positions on both IT and Telecommunication services.

Industry-Vertical Leadership Market leader in Retail, Mining & Manufacturing, Banking & Financial Services

(Gartner). Also key solutions provider for the Public Sector.

Leader in Service Excellence

Leading IT Service Management with an ITIL maturity rating of 4.25 – The highest on the African continent (Pink Elephant: 2014)

Unparalleled Geo-graphical Reach

Extensive geographical reach with trained IT field engineers in multiple locations across Africa.

Strategic Vendor Relationships

Strong relationships with key technology vendors to ensure best technology solutions.

06Glossary of terms


3G – Third-generation wireless telephone technology

B2B – Business to Business B2C – Business to Consumer B2E – Business to Employee BAS – Business Advisory Services CSB – Cloud Services Brokerage IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service IT - Information Technology ICT - Information and Communications Technology/ies IM – Instant messaging IoT – Internet of Things IP – Internet Protocol IPI – ICT Planning and Integration JDA – Johannesburg Development Agency JSE – Johannesburg Stock Exchange M2M – Machine to Machine PaaS – Product as a Service PBXs – Private Branch Exchanges

PoP – Point of Presence PoS – Point of Sale QoS – Quality of Service RSM – Risk Service Management SaaS – Software as a Service SAP – Systems, Applications and Products SI – System Integration SLA – Service Level Agreement SMS – Short Message Service UC – Unified Communications

Telkom Business is a division of the Telkom Group organisation. We exist to serve the South African and African corporate; government and SME markets. Our passion is to seamlessly connect every business towards a digital future. Our solutions are offered end to end — ensuring that your business benefits from every economy of scale and superior service quality. Our solutions are customised by taking into consideration the role of the relevant technology trends; such as: fixed mobile convergence; mobility; machine to machine; big data; Wi-Fi; broadband; LAN; WAN; cloud computing; unified communications; digital and social media and others.

Migrate your business into the digital future — contact Telkom Business today!

Business Connexion is one of the largest ICT services providers in Africa when measured in terms of turnover, assets under management and staff complement. It remains one of the leading South African cloud-based services providers with offices in South Africa, Namibia, Nigeria, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, Kenya, Botswana, the United Kingdom and Dubai. The company employs more than 6 800 people on the African continent and generates revenue in excess of R6 billion a year.

For more information, please email [email protected]/bigbusiness

public cloud: trends and considerations for businessidc’s predictions show saas as being the major...

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