Off-Premise Cloud from a Data Center Perspective

By Pete Schmitt, CTO, cStor

Too often, it seems that people in IT look at off-premise cloud as a competitive offering to the offerings that are typically provided from an on-premise offering. This should not be the case.

IT should embrace the cloud and treat it as another tool in the IT toolbelt. The same IT functions apply, but the decision criteria made by IT should help define the location to fulfill the request. Even if there is more than one data center available, there are reasons for determining the best location for the end user request. Certain scenarios are much clearer to the final location of the data such as the sensitivity of the data, performance characteristics and the length of the time the request is needed. For example, if IT receives a request for 60 servers that are only needed for one month, a cloud model (rent the servers) may be advantageous because the company only has to pay for the resources while they are being consumed.

Each location will have some unique characteristics to help differentiate between possibilities. Data center resource utilization is a key differentiator. Most organizations do not have the luxury of owning excess hardware resources that are waiting for future requests. When unpredicted large requests for resources come into IT, typically the request is delayed while equipment needs to be procured. This cycle can often be reduced when consuming cloud resources, eliminating the time-consuming need for IT to procure new hardware.

IT Fulfillment Request Flow

Below is a diagram of a request coming into IT for fulfillment. As IT receives the request, they can ensure they understand the characteristics of the request and apply the same deployment and security policies independent of the location used to fulfill the request. This ensures consistency and regulates the enforcement of corporate policies.

cStor has decades of expertise guiding clients through their specific journey to the cloud. Not everyone’s journey is the same. As such, you can rely on cStor’s people, process and technology to help you achieve your goals and avoid shadow IT.