Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing, Simply Explained

Beneath the magical aura that surrounds cloud computing are some deceptively simple concepts that, when approached correctly, can offer businesses of all sizes a new set of benefits and a new way to ensure that IT remains aligned with the priorities of the business. There are four basic concepts under the cloud computing banner:

• Commercial model: Customers of cloud computing services have a pay-per-use model, where the amount they pay is directly related to the volume of resources they consume. In comparison, there are much greater fixed costs associated with traditional models of IT provision. 
• Time to provision: Cloud computing facilities can be made available in hours or minutes, in contrast to the traditional IT model, where new resources can take weeks to allocate. 
• Management overhead: In cloud computing, the majority of the IT management burden is carried out by the service provider, as part of the basic fee, rather than being carried out by the customers themselves. 
• Access model: Cloud computing makes resources available via a direct connection to the Excell Network, rather than through local computing resources.

Business Agility and Business Alignment in the Cloud

From a business perspective, the real potential of cloud computing is that it can improve the alignment between IT and business. Cloud computing costs are much more variable in nature and can be tuned up or down depending on business needs. This variability allows more spending to be focused on technology that directly delivers business value.
Secondly, improving the time-to-benefit is another key business advantage of cloud computing. Cloud computing removes or significantly reduces the up-front expenditure on software, hardware and project implementation. Being able to get business productivity enhancing tools into the broad user base earlier means that these tools can be used to deliver business value much sooner. When the reduced up-front costs and effects of earlier delivery are combined, the result is that businesses that adopt cloud computing can expect to see the time-to-benefit significantly reduced, as IT becomes more responsive to the business.

Excell Builds the Cloud for Business

The basic premise of cloud computing is simple.

Companies can have an IT infrastructure that expands and contracts, in line with business requirements, rather than having to invest in computing capacity that sits underutilised except during peak periods. New business initiatives can be started quickly without having to invest in new equipment or use limited in-house IT resources. The Excell Software as a Service (SaaS) solution utilises the Excell 21st Century Network and network of data centres. This highly resilient, on-demand platform enables companies to employ the computing resources in the quantities and duration matched to the needs of their business, something that makes more sense than ever in today's economy. Excell gives customers access to a real-time, self-service portal that lets them dynamically provision and manage physical and virtual servers, network devices, storage and backup services.