Blue-sky thinking

Joseph Crawford and Christopher Gesell of Verizon Business say cloud computing offers a multitude of benefits for businesses today.

CXO. Where are the advantages of cloud computing for enterprises?
Joseph Crawford. Enterprises today are focused on minimising capital investments, so there are real economic drivers to looking at the cloud. Cloud computing offers flexibility in infrastructure planning while improving time to market. Capacity can be scaled as needs change, leaving companies to pay only for what they need. Our cloud computing platform is designed to meet the needs of large enterprises, with an enterprise-class solution for medium-sized businesses. Verizon's Computing as a Service (CaaS) is highly resilient and redundant with security levels that enterprises expect. By leveraging an enterprise-ready solution, we've found that IT leaders often gain increased levels of visibility and performance. CaaS is one way companies can become more flexible, achieve greater efficiencies and control costs.   

How challenging is it for IT managers to manage and secure applications and resources in cloud environments and how can they overcome these challenges?
Christopher Gesell. Not all clouds are the same. Some require the enterprise to re-write their existing applications, changing the architecture and how they manage those applications in order to get the full benefits of the cloud. Verizon approaches cloud computing as a new and secure delivery model, but we don't think it should fundamentally change how companies architect or manage their applications. Our CaaS platform was designed to support commercial off-the-shelf applications as well as traditional two and three-tier applications. Security was top of mind when we developed CaaS. From the physical to the logical, with the option to wrap additional layers of professional security services, the result is simpler and secure management of those applications.

Which factors should companies take into account when choosing their cloud solution?
JC. When considering a move to a cloud computing environment, today's IT leaders should consider:

Security: companies are understandably sensitive about potentially moving data outside of their company firewall. How does the provider protect the infrastructure? Are activity audit trails available? Do they understand the policies, processes, and procedures used by the cloud computing provider? Their standards should meet or exceed those they would impose in-house.

Availability and performance: Moving to the cloud shouldn't require a sacrifice of availability or performance. Are redundancy and resiliency built into the solution, making cloud resources highly available? Do the provider's service level agreements align with internal objectives?

Flexibility: The cloud should afford the company some flexibility. Can the provider accommodate hybrid solutions, connecting their cloud to existing dedicated deployments? Do they have the flexibility to provision the types of resources the applications need - virtual or physical? Does the provider offer both public and private networking options to accommodate different applications?

How does your solution in particular address companies' needs and how does it differ from other solutions in the marketplace today?
CG. By embedding on-demand computing centres into our global IP backbone, we've created a secure network platform to deliver our next generation of infrastructure and application solutions. These cloud-based services span computing and communications applications like conferencing, email, video applications and VoIP. Businesses can dynamically provision and manage physical and virtual servers, network devices, and storage and backup services through a secure portal. Our leading network enables access across the Internet, including private networks like our global MPLS backbone, or VPNs.

As a global leader in information security services, we've used our knowledge and experience to embed multiple layers of security around all solution components including identity and access management, and threat and vulnerability scans. We also provide comprehensive migration support to make the transition painless. What sets us apart is our experience in managing global IP networks and data centers, and our leadership position in information security. We bring it all together to deliver a flexible, cost-effective computing solution, while providing security for one of the enterprise's most valuable assets - its data.

For more information about Computing as a Service, visit www.verizonbusiness.com/products/itsolutions/caas.

Joseph Crawford is the Executive Director of the IT Solutions product portfolio for Verizon Business. Crawford has held a number of positions at Verizon Business and its predecessor companies, bringing more than 15 years of experience in the design, development and deployment of IT Solutions.

Christopher Gesell is Director of Product Strategy at Verizon Business. Gesell has held positions in sales, marketing and strategy at Verizon Business and its predecessor companies. He has over a decade of experience in IT services and is a frequent speaker on cloud services.