What do Delta, United, Marriott and National Car Rental all have in common? They’re some of the most popular and highest-rated brands among business travelers, according to Certify, and companies are working hard to ensure that their business clientele – and their tourism and leisure travel guests – are having the customer experience that boosts their brand and bottom line.
The same goes for travel booking companies too, and they’re increasingly turning to cloud-based services and mobile technologies to keep their customer satisfaction and brand reputation first in a competitive marketplace. What companies like TripAdvisor, HotelsCombined or AirBnb have in common is a strong online presence boosted by technology investments.

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In this brave new world of running businesses with cloud and SaaS technology, who’s buying hardware anymore? Well, cloud providers, that’s who. Financial filings from AWS, Microsoft and Google show they spent a combined $31.54 billion on capital expenditures and capital leases in 2016. Amazon is building a new cloud region in Sweden, and analysts say one region alone can cost several hundred million dollars. This kind of spending clearly reflects the way businesses are adopting cloud, and also makes it a lot harder for other wannabe providers to get in the game.

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The cloud tech IPO landscape has arguably stalled in recent years with the M&A landscape heating up alongside it – but one company looking to buck that trend is identity and management provider Okta, who officially rang the bell today after going public last month.

According to CNBC, the company’s shares went up 37% in the aftermath of its public debut, trading at around $23.

“We’re proud that today is Okta’s first day as a public company,” a statement from co-founders Todd McKinnon and Frederic Kerrest said. “We’re all familiar with the Okta saying ‘always on’. That includes today, the day of our IPO, and each day that follows. It speaks to the mission-critical nature of our products, and acknowledges the trust that we must build with our customers every single day.”

The company’s introduction, as per its S-1 form published on March 13, details its customer base – more than 2,900 customers in over 185 countries, with 20th Century Fox, Adobe and LinkedIn among the standouts – and its cloud-centric focus.

“We believe that we have the opportunity to serve the identity needs not just of the largest companies, but of organisations of all sizes that want to safely and securely move to the cloud,” the note explains under ‘our opportunity’. “We estimate that there is at least an $18 billion global opportunity to serve organisations of all sizes by providing an integrated approach to managing and securing all of their internal identities.”

Back in February, a report from Byron Deeter, of Bessemer Venture Partners, argued the ‘state of the cloud’ was in flux last year, but has since roared back. 2016’s IPOs in the cloud space – Apptio, Blackline, Coupa, Everbridge, and the standout, Twilio – represented the lowest figure since the financial crisis of 2008. Yet the various M&A activity alongside that suggested a serious amount of work going on underneath: Microsoft buying LinkedIn;, Oracle buying NetSuite, and so on.

Okta was notably one of the original cloud-based investments made by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). In a post on the venture capital firm’s blog, Ben Horowitz wrote that Okta has become “the cloud identity company” (emphasis theirs). “Through relentless hard work, determination and ingenuity, they defeated their startup competitors and fulfilled their original vision.”  

According to the S-1, Okta’s revenue grew to $85.9 million in the 2016 fiscal year, putting alongside it net losses of $76.3 million for the same period. 

The human body is the most complex machine ever created! With a complex network of interconnected organs, millions of cells and the most advanced processor, human body is the most automated system in this planet. In this article, we will draw comparisons between working of a human body to that of a datacenter. We will learn how self-defense and self-healing capabilities of our human body is similar to firewalls and intelligent monitoring capabilities in our datacenters. We will draw parallels between human body automation to data center automation and explain different levels of automation we need to drive in data centers. This article is divided into 4 parts covering each of body main functions and drawing parallels on automation

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Cloud adoption is often driven by a desire to increase efficiency, boost agility and save money. All too often, however, the reality involves unpredictable cost spikes and lack of oversight due to resource limitations.
In his session at 20th Cloud Expo, Joe Kinsella, CTO and Founder of CloudHealth Technologies, will tackle the question: “How do you build a fully optimized cloud?” He will examine:
Why TCO is critical to achieving cloud success – and why attendees should be thinking holistically about cloud cost management.
The critical elements of a sound governance program (e.g., tagging, implementing lights on/lights off policies).
Real-world examples of companies that have driven cost savings, governance, and security through automation.

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The recent survey by 451 Research and Microsoft proves that investment in cloud hosting and managed services is soaring, with almost two thirds of overall cloud and hosting infrastructure spend comes aligned with value-added services. 

As the number of organisations moving towards the cloud increases, so too does the demand for the expertise, knowledge and tools that make the transition successful.

Therein lies a real challenge.

Lots of third parties can provide cloud hosting and services, but as the recent cyber breach of ABTA has shown, the downsides of a service interruption can be severe and lingering.

The choice of cloud partner is becoming more important than ever, particularly when that partner is delivering a ‘managed’ service, where they take greater responsibility for confidentiality, reliability and availability.

But who can offer the right kind of guidance, and what should organisations look for when choosing to invest in the value added services of a managed cloud provider?

Buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride

One of the biggest takeaways from the study was the amount of investment directed towards lowering the risk of cyber attacks, and as data regulation gets tighter, including the implementation of GDPR, security becomes a bigger issue than ever.

Companies will be obligated to disclose the extent of breaches to both regulatory bodies as well as customers, and failure to comply will result in hefty financial penalties, loss of sensitive data and a hit to company reputation.

As compliance and security become even more essential to the success of cloud journeys, companies should look to invest in service providers that are equipped to render data unintelligible to those who wish to criminally obtain it.

Services such as data encryption can provide this assurance, as well as help protect against any backlash.

Always check your mirrors

A company’s online presence is a reflection of its brand identity, and it’s important that the platforms that sustain it are always available.

As the research shows, there is a lack of skills and knowledge in-house for companies to depend on when undergoing key digital developments, so businesses should look to third parties to provide guaranteed uptime.

For any organisation looking to undergo its journey with a goal of high reliability, choosing a provider who can offer a ‘no single point of failure’ design will minimise the chance of downtime.

Give your infrastructure a regular MOT

There have been plenty of high profile cases of websites taken offline by peaks in consumer visits or criminal activity.

A reputable managed cloud provider will offer continuous auditing on resources in order to identify issues before they manifest in order to avoid more of the same.

Non-intrusive scanning for real-time network threat awareness also allows IT staff to make better decisions about risk, faster.

Invest in recovery in case of a breakdown

Sometimes a system failure is unavoidable. For these instances, most managed cloud providers will offer disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) in order to minimise data loss and ensure business continuity should the worst happen.

Full, continuous replication to a third party, offsite facility provides near instant recovery in the case of an outage.

Ultimately, choose the right passenger to help you navigate

The research shows that, perhaps most surprisingly, ‘premium, 24/7 support services’ is the area of managed services expected to see the biggest increase in demand in the coming year, ahead of disaster recovery and backup.

This proves that while a company puts precedence on the accessibility of their own resources, so too do they place importance on the dependability of the service provider employed to manage and guide them.

In essence, the journey to cloud can be a challenging one, particularly as new regulation comes into place.

However, choosing a hosting provider with an ‘extra mile’ ethos to service, dedicated account managers that know each company account inside out as well as the safest route means that no query or concern is too big or small along the way.