Embracing IaaS

Day in, day out, there are the same, common place, core challenges faced by CIOs in businesses all across the world. There is the need to consistently deploy applications, deliver business processes and deploy offshore solutions across multiple geographic locations. This also needs to be balanced with providing an exceptional end-user experience across the organisation on a world-class, high-performance, low latency global network. No easy task!

When you factor in that CIOs have to do all of this and keep IT costs at a minimum, while continuing to use IT to innovate business practices, it could be suggested that they face an unenviable task.

Enter Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS).
Many CIOs have recognised the benefits that IaaS can bring. A recent Forrester survey1 showed that 43 per cent of IT organisations in the region have listed IaaS as a high or critical technology priority, up from 33 per cent in 2011. While some concerns remain about deploying IaaS, demand is expected to continue over the next 12 to 18 months as the availability of flexible in-region options increase.

The survey in State of the Asian CXO Report* realizes cloud as a dependable means for delivering IT services, minimizing the cost structure often associated with on-premise deployments. 32.8 percent of those surveyed in the report said that hosted (cloud-based) solutions were now common across their organisation and a further 26.8 percent said they would be adopting hosted solutions as some parts of their organisation had already gone down this path.

Naturally however, there are concerns regarding perceived risks of using IaaS when considering moving across your company assets to a supplier. These include US government policy, data residency and privacy issues, through to data availability, latency and performance. While all are natural causes for concern, it is these very issues that organisations should instead use to evaluate various approaches and vendors’ IaaS offerings.

The benefits of Iaas – why you should consider it
While concerns about moving your company data and applications are understandable, there are many benefits to be had from doing so. Here are just three of the big ones:
· Facilitate increased innovation: As Asia Pacific moves from a manufacturing innovation hub, we’ll see a shift in perspective on IaaS use. IaaS is a cost effective, easy to access cloud-based compute resource that allow businesses greater flexibility to trial and test business functions and ideas. It allows companies to avoid the traditional risks associated with innovation, leading to growth.
· Help reduce your costs: Crucially, the major benefit of IaaS is in its ability to reduce infrastructure costs, changing the cost structure from CAPEX to OPEX. Not only is the IaaS service solution attractive from a cost structure and reduction perspective, but the increase in data centre investments across the Asia Pacific will fuel availability and demand for IaaS over the coming years. Doing this will see businesses move from unstructured and opportunistic IaaS usage to focus on more strategic initiatives.
· Assist the reduction of the IT Burden: With IaaS, businesses can quickly configure and provision applications or infrastructure and use advanced tools for service monitoring and management. This reduces the burden of infrastructure and application administration, and IT staff can focus more on differentiating the company strategically.

What type of IaaS deployment should your business consider?
For CIOs deliberating on an IaaS deployment, there are a few core criteria that should be considered when looking at making the move, including; the type of IaaS provider (i.e. global or local); the available network and infrastructure the solution is built upon; security; flexibility of the provider and the ability to grow with your organisation; the level of control you will have; collaboration between the IaaS provider and telco partners.

In short, to make the most of this opportunity, look for a service provider that meets your infrastructure needs, as not all service providers are created equal. Research by Forrester2 has carved the IaaS provider market into three distinct segments:

1. Cloud-first providers
2. Independent managed service providers (MSPs) that have evolved out of the traditional hosting space to deliver their own IaaS capabilities
3. Cloud platform-based solutions, which include MSPs and other providers that base their offerings on a third-party vendor’s cloud platform.

Cloud-first providers were the clear early leaders in this market, based on a combination of IaaS capabilities, ease of access, and transparency. Telco based IaaS providers also have the added advantage of owning and operating the infrastructure networks, ensuring the quality of communications services. They can also offer additional benefits and reduced risks for IaaS adoption. For example, many medium sized and enterprise businesses already work with telcos, having established relationships for voice and other networking services.

If improved redundancy and security is top of your list, then carrier-grade networks will be the way forward for your business. Telcos have smartly coupled IaaS with their own networks in Asia and their clear advantage is that they can offer all levels of IaaS, from entry-level through to higher-end offerings, back up with well-defined nodes, in country data centres, and network redundancy and security. Telcos also understand local regulations and can help enterprises navigate complex compliance and risk regulations on multiple levels.

Looking ahead
Over the next few years, it is likely that your organisation will be managing multiple cloud stacks across various departments and ultimately pursue a mandate to integrate across cloud providers. In many cases, they will look to their established relationships for help with this “sourcing” challenge.

Now is the time to move beyond a reactive response to business demand when considering IaaS usage scenarios. Instead, consider easy access to IaaS capabilities as a means to enable increased innovation, experimentation, and even the ability to “fail fast” and move on with minimal pain, reduced disruption, or risk to either business processes or IT operations.

As a senior decision-maker your role is to be responsive to business requirements and although cost savings have been the primary driver of IaaS adoption, we expect to see innovation in IT to push ahead as the main motivator for deploying IaaS over the coming years. Selecting a telco partner for IaaS will deliver these opportunities.

*The State of the Asian CXO 2012 report, October 16, 2013
(Produced by CIO Asia and Fairfax Business Media, is based on the findings of a survey of IT leaders in public and private organisations in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, The Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong and India).
References:
Forrester report: Telcos Are Lining Up Broad IaaS Offerings For Asia Pacific Enterprises, January 24, 2013 (Forrester interviewed eight telecommunications service providers, including AT &T, BT, Orange Business Services, NTT Communications, SingTel, Tata Communications, Telstra, and Verizon.)

Forrester report: IaaS Adoption Trends and Guidelines in Asia Pacific, July 23, 2013 (Telstra was interviewed as part of the report development)