Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
- j
ri//
r u
r
'r
/T'
if
r
3 8 NZB September 2012 nzbusiness.co.nz
CLOUD COMPUTING
Cloud computing saves businesses time and money, but, as Bill Bennett explains, they are not the only reasons why you should consider it
Traditional business computing requires hardware, software and the skills needed to tie everything together. It's a huge investment and we're not only talking about money - you also need to set aside time and mental energy to make everything work. This means looking after storage, managing software licences, dealing with backups, finding suitable space to house everything and trained staff to keep it all ticking over. While none ofthat is rocket science, it's a huge distraction. After all, you didn't start that accountancy practice or open those donut outlets because you are a computer expert! With cloud computing, you buy computing power as and when you need it. It's the difference between running your own generating plant and buying electricity from a power company. This means you leave the technology to the experts. It also means your software and hardware no longer need to be close to the place where people use applications and data. Your information technology infrastructure can be across town or in a huge data centre on the other side of the world. It doesn't even all have to be in one place or supplied by a single company. You no longer need to own servers and storage. You don't have to buy, install and maintain software. With cloud computing you don't even need to worry about making backups - that task is generally part of the service. And that's the important word: service. Cloud computing is an Internet-delivered service. You buy it from a cloud service provider. Your service provider will look after the upgrades and maintenance. Their professionals manage all the hard stuff. The day-to-day responsibility becomes their burden, not yours. The economic case for cloud computing is overwhelming. Roly Smoldon, CEO of ICONZ, which offers cloud services throughout New Zealand, Australia and South-East Asia, explains, "Running information technology is not core to most businesses. They sink a lot of capital into technology regardless of what they use. If they need hardware to do a job, they have to buy loo percent of it even if they only need five percent of its capacity or use it five percent of the time. With cloud you can buy a little or a lot, but you'll know exactly how much you'll be paying in advance." He says this restores some balance. "Company owners and managers can sit down and know that spending this much on technology will result in that much extra revenue. That's not something they can do with conventional information technology." Cheaper, easier, and there's morel Businesses have already found they save
money and have an easier life from the moment they switch to cloud computing. That is all the reason you need to move to the cloud. The savings can be substantial. However, once you move servers and applications out of the office to a remote service provider, something else happens it's almost magical. Suddenly it no longer matters where you work from. You can still connect to the cloud from your office desktop PC. You can also connect from home using a laptop, or if you've got wireless technology out on the road or in the middle of a paddock. It works well with an iPad or other tablet computers. You can even access cloud applications from mobile phones.
OneNet
Delivering your
Who We Are
NZ market leader in cloud computing Established for 29 years Culture of innovation
What We Do
Run your software on our servers Deliver your software to your users Use enterprise-class computing Simple per user, predictable fee
Target Market
1 to 5,000 user firms wanting to: Lower IT costs
software
0800 66 36 38 www.OneNet.co.nz
Work with a OneNet Business Partner by contacting Steve Victor, Business Partner Manager on (09) 376 7643 or Steve. victor@OneNet.co.nz
In fact, many do." Smoldon says cloud is also flexible. If the business is growing, buying more is easy. If business is slowing down, reducing expenses is simple. "Scaling is directly in line with your business needs. If you use your own information technology, you'll end up building something big then waiting for the business to come," he says. The many faces of cloud computing Cloud computing ranges from something as trivial as reading email in a web browser with Gmail or Hotmail, to having remote access to versions of the huge powerful ERP (enterprise resource planning) tools used by the world's largest corporations. There are three main parts to cloud computing. They are like layers - the deeper you dig, the more sophisticated it gets. At the top is the best-known and, from a user point of view, the simplest layer: software-as-a-service or SaaS. This is where applications run in a browser. The software runs on remote computers rather than locally on your desktop or office server.
There's a good chance you already use SaaS applications: Gmail, Hotmail, Xero and Salesforce are among the best known examples. Some are free. If there's a charge it's generally a monthly or annual subscription fee - people usually pay by credit card. SaaS is remarkably simple to use and it doesn't require much technology at the customer end. You can run most SaaS applications on old desktop computers with limited disk and memory; it barely matters so long as the machine is capable of handling an up-to-date web browser. Online applications can also be undemanding about Internet connections as, in many cases, only a trickle of data travels between the remote computer and the application. Gleeson says when iPayroll began operation ten years ago, most customers connected via dial-up Internet connections. This lean approach really comes into its own when you connect from a mobile phone where data is still fairly expensive. While a fast broadband connection isn't essential, the applications generally perform
best on better links. This is one of the reasons companies are getting excited about the government funded fibre networks currently being rolled out around New Zealand. Infrastructure-as-a-service (laaS) is the second layer of cloud computing where service providers replace physical servers with what they call virtual machines. This means they deliver all the functionality you'd expect from a traditional server, but it's really just a program sitting on a big system in a remote data centre. As far as users are concerned, nothing changes. Gerhard Nagale, business manager laaS and security at Gen-i says many companies simply rip out their existing computing infrastructure and replicate it in the cloud. So, they may replace a Microsoft Exchange server with one virtual machine, their file server with another, and so on. He says the cost savings are huge because shared resources mean service providers have huge economies of scale. Nagale says medium-sized New Zealand companies are moving to laaS at a steady
FREE
what you do best."
ICONZ are experts in Cloud, Connectivity and Colocation since 1992. "With the global move to online software packages, ICONZ is able to assist. We harness the power of the internet to assist your business by reducing the need tor capital expenditure on in-house servers. Utilising our expertise in cloud computing and infrastructure as a service, your organisation will have the ability to focus on
Cloud Computing or infrastructure as a service is on demand computing. Our service offers increased capacity, without investing in IT infrastructure.
WHY ICONZ CLOUD? ICONZ Cloud is based in New Zealand ICONZ Cloud is secure ICONZ Cloud is 24/7 iCONZ Cloud has Pan Asian reach
ICDNZ
CLDUD I CONNECTIVITi' | CD-LQCATIDN
CLOUD COMPUTING
rate. Rather than dropping everything and changing technologies, they typically evaluate cloud options when it's time for a technology refresh. A third layer, platform-as-a-service, or PaaS, is mainly of use to developers and larger companies with in-house development teams who can create their own applications without buying expensive systems.
seen a downturn or signs of a recession, but then people still need to be paid every week or month." One driver for ICONZ customers is what Smoldon calls "the need to monetise IP" - that's selling accumulated information digitally. He gives the example of the Auckland Law Society which sells the documents lawyers need online. Smoldon said this kind of operation works best in the cloud because it needs flexibility.
them a false sense of security. He says traditional servers can stop working for a variety of reasons, while the ICONZ data centre sees less than five minutes of downtime over an entire year. Cloud providers often store data in multiple locations. Gen-i has servers in Auckland and Christchurch, so if one fails the other continues. If a conventional business burns to the ground or is struck by an earthquake it may be days or weeks before data can be recovered - if ever. There's a similar suspicion about unauthorised people getting access to data. Smoldon says his data centres are staffed and secure around the clock, all access is recorded. Few business owners can be certain their servers are watched as carefully or that access is as well controlled.
The benefits of using iPayroll (NZ) and CloudPayroll (AU): Saves time ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Simplifies Banking I ^ =,.= : I Manages payroll, PAYE (NZ) PAYG (AU) I * ^ ^ ^ ^ I returns and other payments I J,^^^J! I Manages Superannuation (AU) J ^ ^ y - s -'pMM^,^ Manages KiwiSaver (NZ) ^^^^^^"^^^iBi^^BB Payroll giving enabled (NZ) |f-~~-'-gjiy~^^Wi Secure online employee kiosk - Payslip history and tax summary online * Online leave requests . No backup or software upgrade . integrates with all leading accounting software including Xero ^ a d MO n YB '
PROFESSIONAL Wellington Auckland Hamilton Christchurch Melbourne (04) 472 2997 (09)377 1517 (07) 839 7730 (03) 372 9468 +61 3 967 00422
Copyright of NZ Business is the property of Adrenalin Publishing Limited and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.