Cloud Services: The Good and the Bad

As the excitement and hype over cloud services hype continues to mount, the idea of “cloud services” can be quite confusing. The fact of the matter is that a growing number of providers are realizing that cloud solutions can be a powerful ally for deploying applications and services.

Let’s start with the ideal cloud-services customer; this includes:

• Companies that require disaster recovery backup
• Call centers that deal with web chats and high call volumes
• Startup businesses with solid financial backing, but lacking a capital expenditure budget
• Firms that require new applications but are reluctant to renounce certain systems or processes
• Businesses looking to upgrade their communications systems without purchasing new servers, PBXs, and other additional premises-based equipment

Before we go any further, let’s define cloud services. According to Forrester Research, cloud services have three primary layers:

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) — rather than being delivered as dedicated capability, storage, compute, and other IT infrastructure is delivered as a service
• Platform as a Service (PaaS) — application platform or middleware on which developers can operate and build customized applications delivered as a service
• Software as a Service (SaaS) — end-user applications are delivered as a service, as opposed to on-premises software , allowing customers to log on to company software from any location

However, the cloud is not without its complications and limitations that make it less than ideal for certain solutions. Good things aside, there are surprisingly many situations where cloud services do not measure up. For example, disaster recovery, data backup, and business continuity solutions can overcome available bandwidth with the sheer amount of data in motion, rendering it unable to move all of a business’s data onto a cloud service in a practical amount of time.

Unfortunately, that’s not the only area where the cloud’s struggles end; providers are learning that cloud services may not deliver an adequate end-user experience to companies using hosted communications solutions, application delivery services, infrastructure management, and virtual desktops. To combat its weaknesses, cloud service providers have come up with a creative way to prevail over latency, bandwidth, and other data flow issues while still leveraging the advantages the cloud provides, and it’s simpler than you may think. It all comes down to distance – the closer the end-user is located to the resource, the better the performance and the larger the data path.  The solution comes in the form of a hybrid deployment, where onsite hardware, local cloud services and public cloud services come together into a single, cohesive solution.