By 2025, each human being is predicted to produce around 34 terabytes of data during their lifetime, ten times the amount produced in total up to 2016. Given the rapidity in which this landscape is evolving, it’s both understandable and necessary that businesses look for expert assistance when it comes to cloud optimisation.
Thankfully, a previously common inertia concerning cloud has been well and truly replaced as a consequence of the data revolution. However, placing change in the correct hands – either your own or an external provider’s – brings about its own challenge.
“There are so many facets to consider and most can be mitigated by putting cloud and data decisions into the hands of experts so you can instead focus on your own core competencies,” says Hiren Parekh, senior director of cloud services at OVH.
A top-ten cloud provider worldwide and Europe’s number one, OVH leverages its smart – simple, multi-local, accessible, reversible, transparent – solution to assist clients in their increasingly complex data journeys.
“These facets, first and foremost, include the agility to deploy and manage data,” says Mr Parekh. “Cloud is now a central point of strategy for all companies, even those that were traditionally more hesitant as concerns around cybersecurity and the ability to manage so much data push through.”
He also cites aspects of operational expenditure and financial control as a sometimes problematic consideration for companies trying to negotiate the new landscape.
“Managing costs and outlays for something that’s developing as quickly as cloud utilisation isn’t easy when it’s not your core specialism,” says Mr Parekh, referencing an August 2019 study OVH commissioned on cloud service adoption with Freeform Dynamics. “As cloud provision is an integral part of our supply chain, our cloud infrastructure becomes more manageable via monthly billing and an operating-expense model.
“It sounds logistical, but it’s an apt consideration given the complexity of integration and how companies can struggle to manage this. It’s where our focus on reversibility comes in, where open cloud with open standards can facilitate not just a lift-and-shift approach to data transfer, but also a turnkey, all-in-one house to store this data.”
Growing impact of data
OVH recently worked with a data analytics client to help them handle such large volumes of data, including the integration challenges that derive from mergers and acquisitions.
Leveraging OVH’s differentiating industrial model, the datacentre consolidation exercise ensured a requisite level of agility to deploy and manage data through one centralised platform.
“Our integration capabilities helped them downsize and optimise what was a previously fragmented infrastructure, bringing together all their data in one safe place,” says Mr Parekh.
“Our industrial model is a differentiator in this respect as we can own and manage the supply chain from end to end.
“No matter how capable companies think they are at managing this data in-house, they can never have the same scope as outsourced specialists.”
There are so many facets to consider and most can be mitigated by putting cloud and data decisions into the hands of experts
This scope incorporates owned and operated servers, datacentres, water cooling technology, a dark fibre network and international, or multi-local, reach in the case of OVH. In fact, such is the company’s acknowledgement of the growing significance of cloud optimisation that the business is transitioning to the OVHcloud brand.
“It’s a direct reaction to the shift we’re seeing,” says Mr Parekh. “OVHcloud will have dedicated universes for specific market segments to fulfil customer needs in the right way. OVHcloud Enterprise for enterprise and business customers, OVHcloud Marketplace as an ecosystem for the OVH network and our OVHcloud Partner Program will educate clients while allowing them to focus on their own core competencies.”
For OVHcloud, it’s a tangible recognition of the growing impact that data is having in both public and private spaces. For prospective clients though, it’s as clear a sign as ever that this revolution more often than not requires expert assistance.
“Success for us is facilitating other companies’ successes,” Mr Parekh concludes. “And in the era of data, success will largely be determined by how companies deploy and manage cloud.”
For more information please visit www.ovh.co.uk
