The cloud is not a place but a secure way to enable scale-up success

By John O’Donoghue, Dell Technologies

Over the last few years, there has been a significant shift in how business leaders manage their IT requirements. Previously technology was a business facilitator, it made it easier for staff to run a business.

But today, emerging technologies are transforming the way businesses operate by accelerating innovation, driving efficiencies and streamlining operations.

Small and medium-sized businesses are having to adapt far more quickly to remain competitive, and in order to do that, they are looking to simplify their technological requirements. A key enabler in this process is a move to the cloud.

Cloud services increase business agility by facilitating quicker adoption of new emerging technologies without the challenge of integrating legacy IT systems.

Most business leaders think of the cloud as a place in the ether where IT solutions and data are stored. The term is often used to describe data centres which are available to many users over the internet, but the cloud is a way of doing IT.

However, the cloud enables much more. It allows users to avail of software solutions, processing power and data storage on-demand and in a manner which suits each organisation’s needs and scale-up ambitions.

This has resulted in the emergence of different clouds – an organisation’s own cloud or a public cloud which is available to numerous organisations.

Today, as businesses scale-up their operations, they begin to use cloud services across multiple vendors to avail of many different technological solutions. But this brings a new challenge – to ensure that all data is secure and accounted for.

According to IDC, more than 70% of companies use more than one cloud service. Therefore, ambitious business leaders must develop a hybrid or multi-cloud strategy which maintains data security, good governance and maximises value.

A multi-cloud strategy also offers businesses the flexibility to tailor their cloud infrastructure to their specific workload and make sure their data and applications reside wherever makes the most operational sense. For example, a company may find that its best solution is to own an operational IT hub, but also avail of the public cloud for additional technological needs.

IDC found that implementing a hybrid cloud such as Dell Technologies Cloud saves customers 47% over a 5-year period compared to an entirely public cloud approach. A hybrid or multi-cloud approach, therefore, offers the best of both worlds. It gives governance back to the business by managing what public cloud services users are utilising and ensures their business data is securely held. By embracing the cloud, small and medium-sized businesses across Ireland are given the flexibility, capability and agility to scale-up their success and outpace their competitors.