Redefining enterprise technology together

Getting into the cloud is easy, but does working with a partner help to drive greater value from it?

Cloud computing is, without a doubt, the most significant enterprise technology story of the last decade, with all kinds of ageing infrastructure replaced by flexible and connected systems, but the growth is far from over.

Even in the face of an expected economic slowdown, overall IT spending is projected to grow 5.1 per cent globally in 2023, with the bulk of this into cloud technologies, according to analysts Gartner.

Shawn Deegan, head of Cloud at digital services provider Presidio said that there are multiple driving forces for this. Some industries and sectors are moving faster than others, often sped up or slowed down by reliance on existing infrastructure, but all had the goal of improving operations.

“We’re seeing it across the board, but different sectors are going at different speeds. There is some rationale to it: the technical debt side of things; data centre costs, ageing equipment, but a lot of it is driven by leadership and the need to create agility,” he said.

As a global company that operates in Ireland, Presidio has some insight into how Irish organisations compare to their international counterparts in terms of cloud adoption. The public service in particular had been reluctant to shift, but this had changed in the last two or three years, Deegan said.

“In Ireland, we see a lot of the public sector entities holding off, after the pandemic, things have changed significantly. We’re seeing tenders coming out. Most have been experimenting with one area, perhaps collaboration or working from home.”

Meanwhile, in the private sector, he said, the cloud is part of every conversation. On the whole, businesses are not seeking a simple ‘lift and shift’. Instead, when moving to cloud, they want to see real native cloud advantages.

“There is a lot of cost pressure and we’ve seen people backed by VC [firms] tighten up in terms of cost management.

“We have an optimisation service, as we work daily on how customers can put controls in place and ensure there is value associated with spend. Where I see customers struggling is they need to focus on the apps and the data,” he said.

Recent developments in AI, such as the launch of ChatGPT, suggest that the need to focus on apps and data will only get stronger.

“Everybody is asking for data and there are just so many more of these virtual operations, with people working from home or asking ‘how do I interact with customers?’,” said Deegan.

“The power and the scale of the cloud means you don't need to buy a new SAN or a lot of data centre hardware, but people still struggle: how do I provide access in a robust and scalable way, but also not increase risks around the security and data privacy side?”

Meanwhile, security is a day zero requirement.

Helping hand

This is where a managed service provider can help. Where Presidio is positioned, Deegan said, it has access to resources and the ability to provide them to customers to help bridge the gap.

“We don't make them dependent on a third party, we help them get the skills,” he said.

And yet, the skills gap in IT persists and cannot simply be ignored.

“The wider problem of the skills gap has to be dealt with through the education systems and things like immigration, but organisations like Presidio are essential to help the larger customers move fast and even help smaller ones who otherwise can’t compete,” he said.

Beyond the skills gap, is there also a technology gap? With the cloud being about a move away from on-premise hardware, you could be forgiven for thinking absolutely everything was becoming ‘virtual’. While much of it is, as a network-centric technology, cloud demands a quality network.

To this end, Presidio has recently been working with Cisco around the importance of having the right network infrastructure in place before implementing cloud. This resulted in an e-book entitled ‘10 Steps to successfully re-invent your network for a digital, cloud-driven world’ that helps businesses understand the practical steps that should be taken.

“The importance for enabling this cloud-driven world is you become extremely dependent on the quality of your network. It puts a lot of pressure on the legacy network infrastructure, so how do you modernise that and create that resilience that allows you to connect securely and with a really good user experience,” he said.