EDITOR’S
31Q&A
WHICH BUSINESS
ENABLING
SOLUTIONS ARE THE
MOST IMPORTANT
TO OFFER TO
CUSTOMERS
IN LIGHT OF
THE COVID-19
PANDEMIC?
Shifting to a work from home (WFH)
environment is proven to be possible
and successful for knowledge workers,
online service jobs and students, but it’s
been disruptive to traditional field-based
professions. There is no doubt that WFH
has fundamentally shifted the flow of data
via online messaging apps, which are all
hosted in the cloud, and all of this traffic is
now competing with your other cloud-based
applications and services.
The move to modernised consumption
of applications via Software-as-as-Service
(SaaS) and/or Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS)
environments from on-premises isn’t new.
INTELLIGENT
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS TECH CHANNELS Issue
ANDREW SENIOR, CLOUD ARCHITECT
AT NUTANIX
It’s been slowly ticking over for the last 12 to
15 years as a result of a ‘virtualise everything’
approach, followed by IT and business. The
remote working tools at our disposal today
are enabling a level of productivity never
seen before, and business has seen that there
isn’t always a requirement to run locally what
can be run in the cloud – although – onpremises
is still exceptionally important and
the case for hybridity in infrastructure is
still very relevant.
There has been a massive jump in the
flow of traffic, and businesses are reporting
that VPN usage is up 65%, a peak that was
predicted but that arrived 12 to 18 months
earlier than forecasted. It has been well
publicised that there has been over a billion
instances of people shifting to Dropbox and
iCloud storage.
Many people were forced to
migrate during the pandemic which has
compromised their security as moving
everyone to the edge while working on the
same applications can create challenges,
whereas, a DaaS environment enables
business to stream the apps they need to
the edge – when they need them, whilst
maintaining centralised control.
The hybrid multi-cloud gives you the
flexibility needed to spread your risk and
quickly and easily jump between the cloud
environment being used for a specific
workflow or set of applications.
A DaaS solution has become popular, as it
allows you to stream an application without
needing your end device (laptop/tablet) to
be reminiscent of a supercomputer.
When a company deploys a hybrid
solution, it can get a better view on how to
orchestrate workloads as well as ensure
governance is applied. Data sovereignty
requires your data to be closer to home
which does, in part, help prevent latency, so
having an app service a customer, wherever
they are, while being situated centrally is a
key driver.
The hybrid model is the way of the
future and when applied effectively your
environment will look the same and
behave the same, whether it is on-prem
or in the cloud.
You will be able to monitor it, manage it
and view it centrally – giving IT power and
control over the environment. IT as a utility
is coming, devices such as laptops need
to become more resilient and their costs
must come down. Making strides to view
and think of your software design as an
architecture on its own is going to be vital
into the future.
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