By Robert Tickell, IBM Mid Market Sales Leader for the UK and Ireland
Ask any IT worker about updating masses of computing platforms and watch them frown. The effort involved in updating, removing or adding applications, particularly at enterprise level, is huge and time-consuming.
Then there’s the downtime – which nobody likes. Users are frustrated and it costs businesses money. For a midsize company, the cost of downtime is estimated to be around £60,000 an hour, according to businesses surveyed in the Aberdeen Group ‘How Private Clouds can Transform IT in Midsize Companies‘ report.
Private-Cloud-InfographicYet with a move to Private Cloud computing, you get the chance to have all your platforms achieving compliance at a stroke. Policies and defaults can be standardised across applications.
With the enforcement of compliance via the use of server configuration templates, you can reduce errors and have stronger adherence to company policies.
The adoption of virtualisation has also helped organisations slash away at downtime when it comes to deploying applications. For midsize companies who have yet to embrace virtualised computing, it takes 14.7 days on average to deploy a new application, according to companies surveyed in the Aberdeen Group report. Yet this was reduced to a mere 4.2 days after virtualisation.
From a business continuity perspective, companies that have embraced virtualisation can gain even more efficiencies by jumping to the Private Cloud. With this technology, near-zero downtime can be offered in the event of failures, thanks to automated capabilities to that deliver a rapid recovery.
Tiered security is another essential provided by the Private Cloud, allowing IT workers to set up secure work groups and isolate parts of the network.
By speaking to IBM, your business can find the right management app to fit its activities. We look for the ‘single pane of glass’ solution, a central console to manage your entire infrastructure, including all integration with storage and your network. The net effect is reducing your IT overhead and enabling fast responses to issues.
If you’re already using multiple hypervisors, you’ll appreciate how IBM’s management solution can take them on, even if they’re not all from the same vendor. This ensures you can reduce deployment times from days to hours.
With the automated provisioning of standardised virtual images, you can seriously cut down on deployment errors.
The Private Cloud also makes a business more flexible and innovative. With the simple management, swift deployment time and adherence to standards, IT staff can be assigned to other projects. Now you can dedicate time to having your business evolve.
IBM has the know-how to quickly take a virtualised environment to Private Cloud. Our expertise can ensure the deployment is incredibly swift without any of your existing virtualisation needing to be ‘undone’.
As you can see, IBM’s approach to the Private Cloud is all about taking out the risk and boosting efficiency for your business, as it already does for companies across the globe.
We’ve produced an infographic showing you the key business benefits of Private Cloud. This shows you, at a glance, the financial and efficiency rewards. We’ve sourced our facts from the Aberdeen Group ‘How Private Clouds can Transform IT in Midsize Companies’ Report.
To download the Aberdeen Group report (quick registration required) and our infographic (no registration required), just visit http://www.ibmoffers.co.uk/privatecloud