IDC coined the phrase “Digital Universe” to describe the explosion of data that needs to be captured, categorised, searched, stored, retrieved and ultimately, destroyed. The world may have ve been in a recession, but the amount of data exploded by 62% to 800,000 petabytes (800 million gigabytes). By 2020, the volume of data will be 44 times larger than it was in 2009.
In short, the management of data is big business.
Amidst the backdrop of the number of IT professionals growing just by a factor of 1.4, the need to manage all that data by using intelligent systems becomes imperative by the day. However, knowing what storage choices to make can be a challenge – with virtualisation, cloud computing, and unified communications and collaboration all reshaping the face of business.
Data Matters is the ebook that hopes to address some of these questions and, through the articles and case studies that follow, showcase some of the best thinking today that ultimately points to one principle – it’s the data that matters.
Download Datacraft: Data Matters e-book for free today!
Having gone through several points and angles that revolve around the current state and future of cloud computing, outsourcing and multi-sourcing, it is now time to draw conclusions from the things that I have discussed in parts one and two.
No one can do it alone
This three-part post is considered a success if it has helped you understand that:
None of us can do anything alone, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a big service provider or a small company.
Granted that we are working in a demanding and dynamic environment, things are constantly changing so quickly that no one vendor can provide the entire gamut of infrastructure and processes that clients need to compete and succeed.
Having said that, I do reckon that Datacraft already has quite a head start in the cloud computing marketplace mainly because of our key differentiators in networking technologies, systems integration capabilities and best-of-breed partners on our wings.
Drawing conclusions
To wrap up this series, I’d like to present and share vital standout ideas. These are in relation to providing services to enterprises that are currently engaged in the cloud-based economy.
- Competition will intensify.
As a result of this, there will be fallouts and many players who are in the proverbial game would feel the brunt of it and (as a consequence) will drop out. I believe that we must play our cards right and be able to work together in providing relevant and quality services, to be able to come out as winners from the so-called Internet Gold Rush.
- Many Internet businesses (or those related to it) are growing at an exponential rate because of the efforts of service providers.
Subsequently, opportunities abound as more and more companies are outsourcing everything especially those that do not represent a core competency.
- The future would be different in terms of how your client’s IT department does things.
In the past, we helped clients to plan, design, build and run their IT environments. That is still happening today but it is not longer new to see the customer expand their horizons towards having a skill set for sourcing, integrating and managing.
- Speed is of the essence.
The pace of progress and technology dictates that our clients must work fast for them to meet their cloud computing goals. And, progress entails that no one remains the king of the hill forever. “If things are going well and you’re dominating a market, keep looking over your shoulder, because someone somewhere is designing and developing an even better product or service to replace yours.” I believe that it is paramount to always take that to heart.
