Cloud Computing as we see it is simply good old fashioned technology that is over 25 years old rebranded, re-spun and pumped out to the market in various guises. Large enterprise companies such as HSBC, Barclays and many other banks have been deploying server based computing for decades.
When security, disaster recovery and business continuity are paramount, server based computing comes into its own. Banks have used terminal servers across multiple sites, offering their actual users nothing more than a Virtual Desktop that is locked down and is essentially a dumb terminal used to access the backend servers from any location for ages.
With an enterprise IT solution, you will find that the hardware is ‘enterprise grade’, owned by the enterprise and designed, built and supported by staff at the enterprise using the technology. Users are generally locked down at the desktop level, unable to install applications of their choosing and are given minimal yet sufficient email accounts. This leads to a very stable, secure, robust and hassle free IT solution which means the phone hardly ever rings as not a lot can go wrong!! An enterprise system is generally designed so that ‘the phone won’t ring’ because if it does ring too frequently then questions will be asked of senior IT members of staff.
So, role on to around the year 2005-2006 when a few young wise heads left enterprise type companies where they had rolled out large Citrix or RDP deployments for Banks or Insurance companies and they thought…..’Ah…..I can build this in a Data Centre, petition off segments for SME’s to use and earn revenue!!’
Thus was born the early stages of what we now call Cloud Computing. Cirrus Stratus runs it’s own Enterprise platform built on enterprise hardware and enterprise principals because our founder has worked for many large enterprise customers and has been working with Citrix since 1991. When I say enterprise hardware I mean hardware that as large enterprise such as a bank would be happy to use, hardware that is robust, secure and more importantly totally scalable for unlimited growth. Cirrus Stratus owns its own IBM terminal servers, it’s own exchange platform and controls it’s own data storage/backups over IBM SAN’s (soon to be SAN Volume Controllers offering real-time data replication).
With regards to enterprise principals I mean a system built whereby the phone hardly ever rings with unhappy and frustrated users, I mean where a company owns all its own hardware and does not use third parties for key components like MS Exchange and Data storage, data backup where essentially it is not a truly managed service because you are at the behest of third parties.
So, in a nutshell, Cloud Computing is using the same 25 year old technology that large enterprises over multiple global offices have been using for ages however this time all of the infrastructure resides in a Data Centre and is backed up to a secondary Data Centre Companies that sign up to the Cirrus Stratus service are simply given their own locked down, secure petition on a server that is load balanced and monitored to ensure the user gets the best experience possible in terms of speed and functionality. The user is given a Virtual Desktop with MS Office 2010, an email account, data storage and backup, network drives and practically any 3rd party application can also be loaded onto the servers at the data centre.
The end result is that the user can use any device and log on via a secure, encrypted and stable Citrix gateway and access their data and applications from anywhere and at anytime. If you are interested in adopting an enterprise Virtual Desktop solution for your business at affordable prices, then please ring Cirrus Stratus on 0208 543 3322.