Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Cloud redefines IT realm

Cloud-computing technology is going to transform information-technology (IT) organizations into service-oriented entities instead of just being hardware infrastructure-maintenance units, according to a top executive of a cloud-computing provider.

“Moving into cloud will bring IT units into a realm where it will become a service-oriented organization where instead of fixing what is broken, they will be instead looked upon as providing service to move organizations forward,” said Jose Emmanuel Colina, managing director and chief technology officer, ArcusIT, in a recent interview with the BusinessMirror during the launch of its Philippine Infrastructure as a Service Platform in Makati City.

Colina, who worked for more than 20 years in the US, said the launch of the company’s cloud computing-based solution is timely because the country is a right ground for advanced technology.

“The Philippines needed a cloud-infrastructure provider that is local. Cloud adopters need to provide clients with lower latency and better application experience. With the entry of ArcusIT, Philippine-based enterprise organizations can now choose a local provider and be much closer to their data, such as for performance and legal concerns,” said Colina.

He added that ArcusIT’s Cloud Builder allows the easy creation and deployment of computing resources on-demand on a secure, scalable and stable cloud infrastructure, paying only for resources actually used.

To achieve this, Colina said ArcusIT chose Canadian computing company Enomaly to provide them with the ECP-SPE solution designed to deliver powerful cloud-computing platform.

Colina said cloud computing seeks to do business in a different way that would give the IT departments of companies a leading role in charting the growth of the company through a more efficient management of its resources by putting them in the cloud of databases and servers.

Moreover, he said the road toward promoting cloud computing in the Philippines would have face rough sailing in the initial stages because of the low awareness of the domestic IT community. “It will be an uphill battle because many IT people haven’t realize the real value of cloud computing,” he pointed out.

He said the role of ArcusIT is to serve as an extension or replacement to its customers’ IT organization, providing infrastructure as a service (IaaS), cloud storage, disaster recovery/business continuity planning (DR/BCP)  services and software as a service (SaaS)  solutions that enable clients to focus on their core businesses.

He said ArcusIT saw a window of opportunity in the country when they have observed there is a need to introduce innovative information technologies without the usual huge capital outlays.

ArcusIT, whose data facilities are located at data centers in Metro Manila and California, has over 15 years of experience in computing hardware, networking, high-performance computing and service delivery.

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