Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 13 | Page 65

INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cloud Networks Unlimited partners with HyperGrid for ‘next era’ cloud computing ///////////////////////////// African value-added distributor Networks Unlimited has selected HyperGrid as one of its key vendor partnerships due to its strong vision for the next era of cloud: Enterprise Cloud-As-A- Service. This gives CIOs the benefits of private cloud but with the efficiency and scalability of the public cloud. www.intelligentcio.com O ver the past two decades or so, the concept of cloud computing has evolved dramatically as new data centre and networking technologies came to the fore, and new types of ‘cloud’ emerged. cloud entered the ‘everyman’ lexicon, hosting the new wave of smartphone applications and powering new online business services (such as Google’s suite of enterprise services.) While the cloud’s roots may be traced back to computing from decades past, the tipping point is often considered to be the introduction of SalesForce.com in 1999 – pioneering the concept of hosting enterprise applications online, and making them accessible via a website. The data centres got bigger, often housed in desolate expanses in places like Utah and Nevada in the US. To cater for all business needs, public clouds, private clouds and then hybrid clouds evolved. They became richer and more powerful in their capabilities, and in more recent years started integrating advanced artificial intelligence (AI) features to make sense of all the data and help guide business decisions. A few years later, we started building large centres to host data and processing capabilities for a multitude of enterprise applications (via platforms such as Amazon Web Services). Then, about 10 years ago, The cloud advanced from simply a ‘place to host software’ to the nerve-centre of INTELLIGENTCIO 65