Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 35 | Page 99

/////////////////////////////////////////////////// t cht lk MAKING THE JOURNEY TO THE ALL-FLASH CLOUD Enterprise IT leaders are facing critical decisions on how to build a data-centric IT infrastructure that will allow them to harness the value of their data. Christian Putz, Director, Emerging Markets, EMEA, at Pure Storage, explains why an underlying all-flash cloud strategy will be a crucial component of such an endeavour. T he cloud should be considered in any modern storage strategy, and while the advantages of cloud models – simple, on-demand, elastic, and a driver for innovation – are beyond compelling, the path a company should take to a cloud- first strategy is not always easy to define. Private, public or multi-cloud, in conjunction with software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings, will deliver different benefits as part of a successful enterprise cloud strategy. In addition, I believe that as data centre and application architectures change over the next decade, the future is in Data-Centric www.intelligentcio.com Architecture (DCA). The concept is that tomorrow’s architecture will be centred around a broadly-shared set of data services, which enable data to be freely shared by traditional and new web scale applications. Enterprise IT leaders are facing critical decisions on how to build a DCA that will allow them to harness the value of their data, and their underlying cloud strategy will be a crucial component to success. While considering the overall architecture and future of your cloud, there is one key step that should be part of any strategy: standardise on all-flash storage. Without all- “ THE PATH A COMPANY SHOULD TAKE TO A CLOUD-FIRST STRATEGY IS NOT ALWAYS EASY TO DEFINE. INTELLIGENTCIO 99