Containers, microservices and DevOps are all the rage lately. You can read about how great they are and how they’ll change your life and the industry everywhere. So naturally when we started a new company and were deciding how to architect our app, we went with microservices, containers and DevOps. About now you’re expecting a story of how everything went so smoothly, we’re now pushing out code ten times a day, but the reality is quite different.

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‘Unified communications’. A simple phrase to describe an aspirational outcome. But for most businesses today, the idea of a single solution for communications throughout the organisation is exactly that: an aspiration.

That’s not to criticise, of course, but it’s an understandable result of the way that different communications technologies have evolved and been introduced to organisations: from strategically planned solutions aligned to a company’s overall IT infrastructure, to the personal preference of an individual end user (and everything in between).

The use of video in communications is a case in point. High-end video conferencing suites have been around for many years, while video calling applications have familiarised consumers with the benefits of visual contact during remote conversations. As the intuitive user interfaces of consumer mobile and desktop applications is added to the quality of higher-end systems – and as the benefits of the cloud are brought to both – video communication in business has truly come of age. But, right now, most organisations are having to deal with multiple solutions, and the inefficiencies and management headaches it brings.

A state of ‘conferencing chaos’

A recent survey from Lifesize of companies across North America and Europe highlighted the issue of how most businesses have arrived at a state of ‘conferencing chaos’. Two-thirds of those companies surveyed have multiple conferencing and collaboration solutions within their walls. The primary reasons cited were the need to have solutions compatible with external suppliers, and the inevitable preferences of individual end users.

As you would imagine, most of the respondents were unsatisfied with the situation – from a management, quality and cost perspective – and would prefer to move towards fewer providers, if not a single one. And perhaps contrary to expectations, it was only respondents in North America who were most concerned about cost; European respondents identified ease of use and reliability as their primary drivers towards a simplified conferencing infrastructure.

The main frustration with using multiple solutions, however, was simply one of time. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that while employing many solutions may offer more options, it also takes more time for the IT team to train end users on all of those options. It also increases the amount of time needed to troubleshoot problems and manage multiple solutions. IT pros also mentioned compatibility issues, pointing to the time required to make sure that each of those solutions not only works individually, but also in various combinations and on all the conference room and mobile devices that employees – and their suppliers and clients – use to connect.

However, as we all know, achieving simplicity is far from simple. And, of course, in aiming for a simpler solution, it’s critical to avoid the pitfall of reducing functionality and not meeting users’ requirements. After all, user adoption is central to the success of any investment in technology.

Employees increasingly expect to be able to make connections within and outside the organisation quickly and easily on their own devices and without having to juggle multiple dial-in numbers or sit in a conference room waiting for IT to make it all happen. Hence the gravitation towards familiar, consumer applications, which aren’t always ‘enterprise class’, raising issues with security and compliance.

The IT dilemma

Meeting user expectations leaves IT professionals with a dilemma: Should they cobble together a custom solution from multiple vendors or take yet another chance on the promise of an all-in-one solution? Pulling together different solutions from multiple vendors can be flexible and less expensive (even free) but the complexity can leave both IT pros and employees confused and frustrated. On the other hand, an all-in-one solution may not always meet everyone’s needs and can lock businesses into expensive or ill-fitting bundle packages. And both approaches leave IT pros facing perhaps the most critical question of all – how do they choose a solution that employees will actually use?

In an ideal world, our survey respondents gravitated towards the benefit of using a comprehensive solution from a single supplier: 44% of IT pros reported being interested, very interested, or extremely interested in an all-in-one collaboration solution with audio, web, and video conferencing, and group chat from a single, trusted provider, with an additional 38% being ‘somewhat interested’.

The principal benefit of a solution from a single supplier was in simplified management for the IT pro, but the ease for end users was a close second, along with a raft of other associated advantages.

Bottom line, as organisations and the teams within them become increasingly dispersed, with productivity benefits of more flexible workstyles realised, and as collaboration within and between companies expands and improves, having intuitive, reliable, secure, and interoperable communications is clearly critical. 

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced the general availability of Greengrass, which enables users to perform tasks on premise while leveraging the processing, analytics and storage of AWS’ cloud.

The company added that a variety of customers, including Konecranes, Nokia, and Stanley Black & Decker, are using the product for their Industrial IoT efforts.

As the company puts it, Greengrass extends AWS to devices which can act locally on the data they generate. This explains the Industrial IoT angle; for many industries, such as manufacturing and healthcare, not everything can go into the cloud, nor can new projects be built on brownfield developments.

AWS argues there are three ‘laws’ as to why local data processing is important; the laws of physics – it takes time for data to go to the cloud and networks do not have 100% availability – the laws of economics, sending only high-value data to the cloud, and the law of the land, which takes into account data sovereignty restrictions.

In a blog post Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon.com, outlined the importance of the release. “Before AWS Greengrass, device builders often had to choose between the low latency of local execution, and the flexibility, scale, and ease of the cloud,” he wrote. “AWS Greengrass removes that trade-off – manufacturers and OEMS can now build solutions that use the cloud for management, analytics, and durable storage, while keeping critical functionality on-device or nearby.”

“We see AWS Greengrass as the enabler for a new set of digital services, allowing us to program and deliver software to equipment in a secure manner and without risking operational safety,” said Juha Pankakoski, executive vice president of technologies at Konecranes in a statement. “This supports well our aim to build the next generation of lifting as the leading technology company in our industry.”

Elsewhere, at the inaugural GeekWire Cloud Tech Summit, in Bellevue, Washington, software as a service (SaaS) technology business management provider Apptio said that more than three quarters (76%) of its customers were using AWS compared with 52% on Microsoft, with a rise in Azure usage noted. At the same event, as reported by GeekWire, Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise Group, said that it was “pretty much Amazon and us in every single engagement” competing for business, although adding the Google, predominantly third in the analyst rankings for cloud infrastructure, was not to be underestimated.

‘IT as a service’ (ITaaS) is on the rise as companies realise the benefits of contracting an IT service provider for all their business technology needs. While ITaaS is not a new concept, it has become a go-to operational model for medium-to-large sized companies that need 24/7 monitoring, managing, and sustaining of company technology.

Moving to ITaaS is an operational shift, where IT is run as a business and therefore can be optimised according to business needs. Companies that run hybrid IT environments, such as private cloud, public cloud, and in-house applications, can contract services for all or just part of their technological system. Here are some leading benefits of IT as a service and why more companies are shifting to this model.

Full-time security

Hiring a full-time staff to monitor servers 24/7/365 is expensive and can eat up a lot of the IT budget. Instead, by contracting an ITaaS provider, companies can save valuable time and resources. This provider will be on-call for any disruptions of services, applications, or any website or hardware. The ITaaS provider will fix the issue and alert the company if necessary.

Since IT security is a top concern for businesses, having an ITaaS provider can take away an element of fear, as they are skilled in handling breaches such as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks or malware issues. And especially for companies with strict compliance regulations, and ITaaS provider can ensure all requirements are met.

Efficient support for employees

Most companies have employees distributed around the country or around the world, which often means limited deskside support resources. An ITaaS provider, however, can deploy a self-service support portal, which allows employees to open support tickets, search a robust FAQ, check the status of issues, request new devices, or find any information related to the IT aspect of their position.

This type of support system is seamless for employees who want fast answers and quick relief from IT issues. It can be integrated with help desk software applications, making internal IT support easy.

Monitoring and management

All companies must monitor and update hardware for items such as antivirus software, operating system updates, etc. This process takes time and resources that could be used elsewhere. By shifting this responsibility to an ITaaS provider, companies are relieved of managing each employee’s laptop, desktop, and mobile device. The ITaaS provider ensures all devices are regularly updated with the latest operating systems and applications.

Furthermore, the ITaaS provider can remotely access each device for configurations, patching, and ongoing maintenance. If for some reason an on-site fix is necessary, the system can alert a designated technician to fix the problem. ITaaS providers also monitor and maintain virtual servers, remotely fixing any issues, to ensure regular and consistent performance.

Enhanced reporting

Many companies are bound to a service level agreement (SLA), which makes performance monitoring an important part of IT services. The ITaaS provider can monitor performance and alert technicians to when action is necessary for any hardware or device. ITaaS providers can report against enhanced SLA metrics beyond standard OEM warranty terms. For small-and-medium sized businesses, attaining these services through the OEM can be costly, which is why an independent service organization is an affordable alternative.

Turbonomic, a Boston-based cloud and virtualisation software provider, has announced new support for Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure public cloud environments with general availability of its 5.9 iteration.

The company says the move will ‘enable customers to confidently accelerate their journey to hybrid cloud’, with support offerings include visibility of all workloads regardless of where they reside, and lowering of public cloud bills by 30% on average.

Other features include being able to migrate to AWS and Azure public clouds through migration planning, workload placement and workload scaling, controlling public cloud workloads, and enforcing compliance across hybrid environments.

Turbonomic cited a Gartner forecast which argues that by 2020 a quarter of large enterprises will run ‘dynamic optimisation’ solutions to manage the public cloud, compared to less than 1% in 2016.

Gartner defines dynamic optimisation as “a technology capability that uses telemetry, algorithms, service and resource analytics, and policies to drive automated actions that reduce waste, cost and risk exposure, while simultaneously improving service levels.” Naturally, Turbonomic – back in its previous life as VMTurbo – was named as a representative vendor in the analysis, in April last year.

“Transitioning to hybrid cloud presents a new challenge: deciding which workload should run where and when, and confidently managing the transition. It’s a cloud-scale challenge that can only be solved with self-managing software,” said Shmuel Kliger, Turbonomic founder and president in a statement.

“With today’s announcement, Turbonomic is uniquely positioned to help customers monitor and automate their workloads anywhere – on premises and/or in public cloud – in real-time, to unleash the full potential of the public cloud’s elasticity and scale.”

In August, Turbonomic – alongside Verizon – issued research which argued business continuity was the most important business driver of multi-cloud adoption, yet citing cost as the primary differentiator. The company told CloudTech at the time that focusing primarily on cost was “not a recipe for assuring customers are delighted with your service.”

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