CIO
opinion
CIO
OPINION
utilise both, modern IT professionals must
understand the strengths and limitations
of different infrastructure options to create
the optimal hybrid environment for their
organisational needs.
Public cloud has revolutionised the standard
for easy IT. It’s simpler to manage, and
removes the time and energy burden of
technology upgrades from the customer.
It’s a utility model, which is attractive to
organisations for which CapEx is limited,
and provides the flexibility needed to
scale up and down quickly depending on
fluctuating demand. An insurance company,
ABOUT YOUSUF KHAN
Yousuf Khan is CIO of Pure Storage.
As the first to hold the role, Yousuf has
helped Pure Storage scale infrastructure
and processes through the fastest growth
of any systems company in history. In
addition to his instrumental role in the
expansion and management of Pure’s
internal infrastructure, Yousuf serves
as a technical customer advocate,
working closely with prospects and
partners to provide strategic insight
into challenging IT environments. With
more than 15 years in the industry,
Yousuf brings with him extensive
experience in building infrastructure
and application development. Through
constant, targeted engagement with
CIOs and other IT decision makers,
Yousuf helps shape future generations
of Pure Storage innovation by providing
direct, practical feedback from industry
peers. A frequent speaker, Yousuf’s areas
of expertise include emerging solutions
like public cloud, private cloud and SaaS,
with a specific focus on how successful
CIOs have strategically combined
those solutions with modernised on-
premise storage to build the strategic
infrastructure of tomorrow.
Prior to joining Pure Storage, Yousuf was
the CIO of Qualys. The first to hold the
position post-IPO, Yousuf led corporate
infrastructure, IT security, business
applications and sales operation. He
also served as CIO of Hult International
Business School, where he led global
systems and established worldwide
infrastructure across five continents. He
graduated with a degree in Business
Management from Kings College London.
www.intelligentcio.com
for example, needs more infrastructure up
and running when more of its customers
are on the road – to scale up and down
over the course of days or hours requires an
agile solution. The other side of the same
coin is scale over time. As an organisation’s
data requirements grow, so does the public
cloud bill – exponentially. Today, there is an
entire industry being created around public
cloud cost management. Many CIOs report
directly to the CFO, and when we speak to
them, cost certainty is a recurring theme.
A volatile and unpredictable operating
expense can be untenable when building a
digital organisation.
For all its agility and ease, the public cloud
often comes with a performance and
reliability downgrade when compared
to the best on-premise solutions. This is
corroborated by findings from the survey
as availability (52%) and performance
(47%) were cited as two of the key drivers
for continued use of traditional on-premise
solutions. Availability and reliability are
core tenets of any cloud strategy. Today,
CIOs need to be much more deliberate and
thoughtful about the impact of outages
on end-users and customers. In the public
“
ORGANISATIONS
NEED IT TO WORK
FOR THEM, SO
THAT THEIR BEST
AND BRIGHTEST
TECHNICAL MINDS
ARE WORKING
TO ADVANCE
THE NEXT WAVE
OF INNOVATION
RATHER THAN
MANAGING
INFRASTRUCTURE.
“
CIOS NEED TO
ENSURE THAT
THEIR CLOUD
STRATEGIES ALIGN
WITH EVER-FLUID
NATIONAL AND
INTERNATIONAL
REGULATIONS AND
REQUIREMENTS.
cloud, disruptive outages do happen. In
fact, it happened to Amazon Web Services
(AWS) this past February. For mission-critical
business operations, like high-performance
analytics or anything at scale, a hybrid
environment is better suited.
Last, and top of mind for a great many CIOs
I’ve spoken with, is compliance, something
that is particularly important in the Middle
East; 77% of IT decision makers surveyed
said their organisation has reduced usage
of public cloud over the past year due to
security concerns and 38% cite security
as the key roadblock to adoption of public
cloud. In highly-regulated industries
such as healthcare and government,
data sovereignty and direct control over
response to outages are a non-negotiable
requirement for many workloads.
CIOs need to consider compliance strategy
in a world where data sovereignty and
regulations are fast changing. In light of
global events like Brexit and geopolitical
tensions in the region, CIOs need to ensure
that their cloud strategies align with ever-
fluid national and international regulations
and requirements.
Ultimately, smart, successful companies
use resources toward solving customer
problems. Organisations need IT to work
for them, so that their best and brightest
technical minds are working to advance
the next wave of innovation rather than
managing infrastructure. n
INTELLIGENTCIO
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