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UnderstandTheCloud
introduction
IT is rapidly moving from a function that is run, managed and maintained in-house to an outsourced service hosted in a secure environment and managed by a specialist provider.
Cloud computing services are attractive because they enable businesses to transfer the responsibility of running on-premises hardware and software to a specialist provider, who manage the hassles and costs that otherwise burden IT departments, such as software upgrades and hardware maintenance.
Over the next 5 years, the need for a local on premise IT department will be dramatically reduced. The days of large upfront costs are gone, meaning high capex expenditure on infrastructure, expensive maintenance and ever increasing energy bills will soon be things of the past.
Cloud is a pay as you consume technology which means you can budget your IT costs into a monthly manageable sum. A private cloud solution enables the hosting of a range of services from IT data and applications, to disaster recovery and telephony which provides significant cost savings.
HEAD IN THE CLOUD?
“As a business resource, IT today looks a
lot like electric power did at the start of
the last century [when it was routinely
produced by individual businesses rather than
utility providers]... executives are routinely
sidetracked from their real business... by
the need to keep their company’s private IT
infrastructure running smoothly.”
MIT Sloan Management Review, Nicholas Carr.
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In the next
5 years,
75%
of all
IT processing
will be done
in the Cloud.
In 2015,
end-user
spending on
cloud services
will be
more than
£115
billion
Businesses
fully utilising
cloud computing
save on average
more than
15%
on their IT
spending.
82%
of companies
state they
have saved
money by moving
to the cloud.
80%
of cloud
adopters saw
improvements
within 6 months
of moving
to the cloud.
DID YOU KNOW?
£
£
SOLD
did you know?
THE REAL BENEFITS
Scalability:
Get the specific amount of power you need, when you need it, enabling you to increase and decrease levels to suit your businesses demands.
Cost Savings:
Thanks to the utility pricing model of the cloud, you only pay for what you use. Avoid upfront hardware costs, as well as the costs of maintenance, software upgrades, power, and the manpower to manage it all.
Disaster Recovery:
A full back-up solution of not just your data but your entire server operating system and applications.
Accessibility:
Host all your data and systems via a secure leased line connection which provides a high-speed private link between you and your provider.
Resilience:
Protecting your business against any potential IT failures that could cause down-time or disruption, fully backed-up to provide a complete disaster recovery solution.
Business Focus:
When you rely on the cloud, you can apply your time and money towards your business priorities, rather than worrying about your IT infrastructure.
£
£
benefits
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Believe it or not, the basics of cloud computing and the differences between on-premise, infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-as-service (SaaS) can be explained by using the example of making a pizza.
In each scenario you’re still having pizza, however in some cases your business takes responsibility and expense for managing all elements of the process, whilst in the latter you let a specialist do the work for you.
What’s pizza got to do with IT you may ask? Change the diagram into IT and it starts to become clearer how it translates into the different Cloud services:
The benefit of the ‘dining out’ model or SaaS is that your business outsources the entire process to a specialist provider who takes responsibility for everything, including the upfront cost of purchasing the infrastructure, maintaining the equipment, storage, security and running a team of specialists.
ON-PREMISE OR HOSTED – WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
Dining Table Soda Electric/Gas Oven Fire Pizza Dough Tomato Sauce Toppings Cheese On Prem You made at home You manage Dining Table Soda Electric/Gas Oven Fire Pizza Dough Tomato Sauce Toppings Cheese Take & Bake
You manage Managed by v endor Dining Table Soda Electric/Gas Oven Fire Pizza Dough Tomato Sauce Toppings Cheese Pizza Delivered Yo u manage Managed by v endor Dining Table Soda Electric/Gas Oven Fire Pizza Dough Tomato Sauce Toppings Cheese Went Pizza Dining Managed by v endor
Iaas Paas SaaS
Application Data Runtime Middleware OS Virtualisation Servers Storage Networking You manage Softwar e Platform Infr astructur e Application Data Runtime Middleware OS Virtualisation Servers Storage Networking You manage Managed by v endor Application Data Runtime Middleware OS Virtualisation Servers Storage Networking Yo u manage Managed by ve ndor Application Data Runtime Middleware OS Virtualisation Servers Storage Networking Managed by ve ndor IAAS Infrastructure as a Service PAAS Platform as a Service SAAS Software as a Service Dining Table Soda Electric/Gas Oven Fire Pizza Dough Tomato Sauce Toppings Cheese On Prem You made at home You manage Dining Table Soda Electric/Gas Oven Fire Pizza Dough Tomato Sauce Toppings Cheese Take & Bake
You manage Managed by v endor Dining Table Soda Electric/Gas Oven Fire Pizza Dough Tomato Sauce Toppings Cheese Pizza Delivered Yo u manage Managed by v endor Dining Table Soda Electric/Gas Oven Fire Pizza Dough Tomato Sauce Toppings Cheese Went Pizza Dining Managed by v endor
Iaas Paas SaaS
Application Data Runtime Middleware OS Virtualisation Servers Storage Networking You manage Softwar e Platform Infr astructur e Application Data Runtime Middleware OS Virtualisation Servers Storage Networking You manage Managed by v endor Application Data Runtime Middleware OS Virtualisation Servers Storage Networking Yo u manage Managed by ve ndor Application Data Runtime Middleware OS Virtualisation Servers Storage Networking Managed by ve ndor IAAS Infrastructure as a Service PAAS Platform as a Service SAAS Software as a Service
The ‘Pizza as a Service’ example is quite simple and can be explained as: You can make a pizza at home where you’re responsible for buying all of the ingredients and providing the equipment and energy to cook the pizza. You can purchase a pizza from the supermarket but cook and eat it at home. Have pizza delivered to your home and just provide the environment to eat it in. You can go to a pizza restaurant that provide everything you need.
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CLOUD HOSTED
ON-PREMISE
Vs
Exp ensive ca pit al c os t Dif c ul t t o sc ale as busin ess g rows Ea sy to sc al e an d ad d ne w u pgrad es Econ om ical rec eiv e m ore re so urc e fo r y our mo ney Costly to m ain tain an d k eep upd ated Un st ab le and unreli able Aff orda ble , C ap ex Fre e – pa y m onth ly Sta bl e, fa st a nd s ecur eExpensiv
e
to maintain
Difcult
to upgrade Scaling is expensive PBX phone system Software based meaning no hardware topurchase and maintain Stable
, fa st and secur e t elephone calls
Features such as Presence information and Voicemail to Email
Eas
y t
o scale
and add additional t
elephones Local network and servers Cloud hosted server £ Data easily recoverable in a matter of minutes Allows SMEs to introduce Enterprise level DR plans Instantaneously backed-up Backed-up and replicated at 2nd data centre Hosted DR your workplace technology partner More expensive than cloud based back-up Complicated and slow recovery process Backup via tapes / network Unsecure, data can easily get lost or stolen Degradation of tapes could cause loss of data
Lines & calls
SIP T
runks
ISDN30 lines are twice the cost of SIP trunks
Expensive for multi-site businesses
Calls costs and line rental are expensive Up to
50%
cheaper than traditional phone lines Flexible and scalable – instantly add or remove new trunksNo charges for calls between different geographical offices Calls 25% cheaper than traditional telephony Hosted in secure private data centres Access to an expert team
with a range of knowledge Service Level Agreement (SLA) guarantees service Cost to recruit, manage
and train staff Cover required during
holiday or sickness May not have specialism
in all areas of IT
Outsourced
IT supportIn-house
IT support Dedicated team monitoring systems and servers 24/7 Knowledge onall areas must be kept up-to-date 24/7
Vs
Vs
Vs
Vs
Vs
On-Premise
Cloud Hosted
Unsecure – security risks, hacking or viruses
Unreliable and NO Service
Level Agreement (SLA) Contention means slow
speeds at peak time Unable to send large
files, video or voice
Guaranteed upload and download speeds
Fully uncontended line
means no sharing with other users Service Level Agreement
(SLA) and uptime of 99.9% Flexibility to turn bandwidth
up or down Broadband link
to internet
Vs
Fibre connectionVoiP telephony
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Public Cloud
Private Cloud
Hybrid Cloud
Is based on shared physical hardware which is hosted publicly and has multiple users sharing the same resources. It’s a cheaper option which may suit small businesses but does not provide a secure environment; think of services such as Google, Amazon or Dropbox. Many cloud providers give access to a shared cloud via the internet which doesn’t provide a true managed environment and relies on the businesses existing firewall to prevent viruses and security failures.
A bespoke infrastructure purely dedicated to an individual business which is hosted either on-site or at a service provider’s data centre. The private cloud delivers all the agility, scalability and efficiency of the public cloud, but provides far greater levels of control and security, making it ideal for medium and large businesses or those with strict data regulation and governance obligations. EBC Group’s Private Cloud enables customisation to best suit a business’s specific requirements including dedicated and/or hosted
environments, something that cannot be achieved in a public cloud.
Offers businesses the best of both worlds and provides both security and flexibility. For example you can use EBC Group’s Private Cloud whilst also keeping some of your servers or applications in-house, which will provide extra control and resilience.
WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF CLOUDS?
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Private Cloud
Public Cloud
On Premise
DIFFERENT IT SETUPS
All services are run, managed and maintained from within the business On-site hardware, servers and PBX
phone system. Broadband link to the internet and calls made over ISDN30 lines. Back-up via tapes or network A traditional on-premise setup is
expensive to run, manage and maintain. It’s less flexible and difficult to scale to multiple sites as your business grows
Key
Internet Firewall IT Team Disaster Recovery Solution On-site server Back-up tapes PBX telephony Email services Data backup Secondary Data Centre VoIP telephony Secure email services and web Managed print Hosted telephony Information PortalConnection to providers data centre is via the internet meaning you risk losing everything if you lose access
Reliant on businesses own firewall protection against internet viruses and spam
Data back-up only, does not provide access to applications or instant availability of data
Dedicated leased line into Private Cloud Dedicated infrastructure and/or hosted
environment within the private cloud Fully replicated to a secondary data
centre providing virtual machine, back-up and disaster recovery solution. Access to the internet via EBC Group’s
secure leased line
Flexible and inexpensive to scale to multiple sites
EBC Cloud
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NOT ALL CLOUD PROVIDERS ARE EQUAL
It’s a big step for your business to migrate some or all of its data and
applications to the cloud. When your business is deciding whether
to host your services in the cloud it’s important to consider how your
data is being stored and to find out as much as you can about the
specialist provider and the data centres they use.
Over the next few pages are 10 questions that you should consider
when choosing a cloud provider.
1
Does the provider own their own data centres?
If the cloud provider does not own their own data centre then they and you will be relying on a third-party, which raises a number of risks to access the data. Such as can they guarantee that the data is secure? What happens if something goes wrong, can they access the data immediately? What happens in the event of disaster, such as fire?
IDEAL ANSWER: EBC Group own 2 secure dual data centres which we have immediate access to 24/7, with the secondary data centre providing replication and fail-over.
2
Where geographically are the data centres located?
Ideally, you want your provider to have direct access to their data centre, whether this is onsite or within easy reaching distance. Those providers who distance themselves from the centres are unable to physically access your data should they need too.
IDEAL ANSWER: EBC Group’s data centres are onsite, secure and maintained regularly by our in-house team of specialists.
3
What Tier data centre is it?
A tier system provides a simple but effective means for measuring and benchmarking data centres and identifies whether a particular data centre is suitable for your business needs. Quite simply, the higher the tier the more stringent (and therefore secure) the data centre is. Tier 4 is usually the preserve of companies looking for the highest level of security, such as banking groups and military organisations.
IDEAL ANSWER: To be secure you should be looking for a minimum of a tier 3. EBC Group operates as a tier 3 data centre which is suitable for even highly regulated businesses.
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NOT ALL CLOUD PROVIDERS ARE EQUAL
Questions continued >
5
Do they own the hardware or are they just reselling
someone else’s service?
It is common to find IT companies that are resellers of various hardware and software brands. Although some do offer a good range of services, your provider may not have control over a resold service, which means if anything goes wrong they are unable to do anything about it. Most importantly, if you wish to get hold of your critical data, you are obliged to go via a third party. IDEAL ANSWER: EBC Group is fully equipped with our own hardware, and does not out-source to a third party.
6
How often are they backed up?
Back-ups should be performed on a regular basis, and should be frequently carried out by your provider.
IDEAL ANSWER: EBC Group backs-up every night as a minimum, or more frequently depending on the requirements of our client.
4
Does the provider have direct physical access to the
data centres?
Operating an in house data centre can have numerous advantages, including greater control, capacity, power and security. Direct physical access allows your provider a higher degree of control over facilities, ensuring the centre is secure, and that any issues are addressed with immediate effect.
Essentially, if your provider outsources to a third-party, you are not only entrusting your sensitive data with the provider, but also a further source that you know very little about.
IDEAL ANSWER: EBC Group has direct access to our dual data centres, running them directly from our premises in Halesowen and Northampton.
7
How many data centres do they use?
A good provider should ideally have more than one data centre, making the over-all service secure and robust. If one data centre were to fail, you can be safe in the knowledge that any additional centre can still continue supporting your critical data. Additional data centres will also provide the capacity to keep pace with your business if you choose to expand.
IDEAL ANSWER: EBC Group has 2 state-of-the-art data centres, located at our headquarters in Halesowen and in our regional premises in Northampton.
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NOT ALL CLOUD PROVIDERS ARE EQUAL
Questions continued >
8
What is their uptime or SLA (service level agreement)?
An SLA or ‘uptime’ is simply the contracted agreement that indicates what the provider is obliged to offer. A good provider should be able to address all aspects of hosted data centre services, such as network connectivity, power & cooling and server hardware.
IDEAL ANSWER: EBC Group retain an industry leading uptime of 99.99962%
9
What security checks do they do?
In order to meet the changing requirements of compliance and data protection, data centres are now typically designed with perimeter security, access systems into rooms, CCTV and locked cabinets as standard.
However, it isn’t just physical checks that are considered important, but also the invisible checks on electronic security.
A reliable data centre provider should be carrying out regular penetration tests on your network firewall, helping to improve and maintain security and access. Crucially a provider should be able to show evidence of these tests, in addition tothe electronic security measures that are in place.
IDEAL ANSWER: EBC Group is equipped with some of the most up to date and secure technology to ensure our data centre stays fully protected at all times, allowing us to exceed industry standards.
Do they have multiple independent network and power
feeds to their infrastructure?
It is essential to confirm if your provider has multiple fibre and power leads. Multiple fibre leads ensures your provider and data centre are still able to
operate in the event of roadwork damage to any fibre cabling. Whereas, multiple power feeds, preferably one from mains power and the other from a generator, will ensure that any downtime is counteracted by making a seamless switch automatically.
IDEAL ANSWER: EBC Group has multiple fibre feeds to their data centre, including a Virgin and BT presence. We also have the means to switch to a powerful onsite generator in the unlikely scenario that we experience power loss, as well as having the support of an additional data centre for full backup and security.
10
EBC Group privately owns two state-of-the-art, secure
data centres based onsite and maintained by our highly
trained, certified team. There are multiple fibre feeds to
our data centre, including a Virgin and BT presence and onsite
generator. Fully backed-up each evening (more frequently on
request). We retain an industry leading uptime of 99.99962%.
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about
EBC Group are an award winning provider of IT, telecommunications, print solutions and document management services. As a total solutions provider, our model is designed to provide a viable solution for your business, helping to improve efficiency and save money. We have a proven track record of providing businesses with a new IT infrastructure at no extra cost.
We privately own our entire IT infrastructure which means we can provide businesses with their own private cloud, hosted within our primary data centre with a fail-over from our secondary data centre, providing a true disaster recovery solution.
EBC Group also has the ability to connect all of a business’s outlets directly to its private cloud through private managed fibre circuits. This enables us to host a range of other services, including Disaster Recovery, Telephony and Print. Bringing all of your services together and managed by EBC Group will provide you with the most cost effective solution for your business.
Through continual investment, development and training in the upcoming areas of IT, EBC Group ensures it is at the forefront of future trends and can bring a substantial level
of the highest qualifications and certifications from most major IT and communications providers including Dell, Cisco, Microsoft, VMware, Veeam, BT and Virgin. Our expertise helped us win the ‘Best Private Cloud Project’ at the Datacentre Solutions Awards.
WHO ARE EBC GROUP?
“We work closely with businesses of all
sizes across both the private and public
sector, treating every customer with the
same high level of service and attention
to detail. Our commitment to provide a
tailored and bespoke solution for each
project we implement is how we have
successfully built our customer base for
over 25 years”.
about
next steps
WHAT SHOULD YOU DO NOW?
Identify
Start by identifying the people within your business who should be involved in the migration – including in-house technical expertise and key stakeholders.
Review
Review your IT environment to determine what data and systems could be hosted within the cloud.
Select
Select a cloud hosting provider that meets your needs for reliability, trustworthiness, transparency, and accountability.
Call us on: 0121 585 4412
or email: [email protected]
Your next steps with EBC Group...
1 Discover more about Cloud Computing by visitingebcgroup.co.uk/IT-services
2 Learn more in-depth information by attending one of our free ‘Understand the Cloud’ workshops. ebcgroup.co.uk/events
3 Speak to us for free advice or let us investigate your current set-up to create a tailored solution for you.
