virtualisation &
cloud computing
so are able to respond to how the
cloud operates in their build design.
From that build design they get
fantastic flexibility and scalability.
Their infrastructure costs a lot of
money to develop, because you
need to have a lot more specialism
in the control plane.
Some users are coming back
from public cloud, because it
doesn’t do the things they need
it to, and returning to more
traditional cloud based models.
Others are now evaluating the
sort of cloud they need for the job
they need it to do. In the rush to
cloud everyone went to Amazon
and Microsoft amidst the hype, but
many of them are being burned by
the experience. They either can’t
get fixed-price contracts, so the
usage levels end up costing them
much more than they expected, or
it doesn’t respond in the way they
wanted and they realise a more
bespoke architecture is needed.
The demand
for absolute
control over
environments
is pushing
development
very rapidly.
‘The true
picture in
the industry
is a shift
back to
private
cloud for
many
enterprise
users and
SMEs.’
The private cloud
Many big organisations similar to
the type utilising UKFast’s eCloud
Private have massive architectures
that cost millions to re-architect
into the public cloud model, so
they don’t see the ROI on that as a
project. They use private cloud to
get the flexibility without having to
rebuild their systems from scratch.
These organisations are ready
to trust their bigger, more critical
architectures to the cloud. They
see the benefits of moving from
on-premise to cloud but not
24 | July 2017
Enterprises
now demand
greater flexibility,
visibility and
firmer guarantees
around uptime.
necessarily needing to go down the
full DevOps route.
The private cloud model is
mature and trusted now, so the
fear has gone. Five years ago the
question was: ‘Is cloud right for
us?’ Now, people understand
the benefits they get from the
technology. The deals we are seeing
come in to UKFast now – hosting
contracts worth up to £3 million –
are not the kind of deals businesses
sign up to if they’re not certain the
technology is up to the task.
These massive deals usually
come to us from another
provider that can’t deliver certain
capabilities, in particular the ability
to scale VMs automatically via
APIs. This automated functionality
is one of the main attractions of
cloud to the enterprise.
So demanding
Enterprises now demand greater
flexibility, visibility and firmer
guarantees around uptime. This
means monitoring is critical to
hosting providers if they want to
stay relevant. We’re working hard
to allow our customers visibility on
a range of performance indicators:
Storage, CPU, memory, latency,
throughput, customer visitors and
other business intelligence metrics.
This demand for absolute
control over environments is
pushing development very rapidly,
enabling a change in development
cycles. It used to take three years to
release a product, now consumers
and businesses expect updates
to be pushed out weekly or even
daily. The flexibility of these
platforms allows maintenance
to be conducted within the live
environment without the user
even noticing and without any
requirement for downtime.
Everyone has their own agenda
when they talk about cloud
nowadays. If you speak to Mi crosoft
or AWS fans they tell you everyone
else is dying and Azure and AWS
will soon be all that remains.
The UK’s cloud scene is clearly
extremely vibrant and continues
to grow and develop. The US giants
have the biggest mouthpiece so,
from the point of view of the UK
providers, we need to ensure that
our message is very concise when
we have the opportunity to talk.
I fundamentally disagree with
the argument that one cloud is
winning over the other – we just see
that they absorb people at a different
stage of development, depending on
their needs. The only way to utilise
cloud to its full potential is to have
a dialogue with your provider and
work with them to design the best
architecture for your project. The
best providers don’t just churn out
cookie cutter solutions but listen to
clients and find the solution that’s
most appropriate for them.