With the increased awareness around cloud solutions, most organisations immediately think about reducing cost and shortening time-to-market. As more ideas around cloud are discussed, other criteria become equally important. Performance, security, compliance, workload segmentation, and how to integrate the cloud become more relevant to an existing environment. The profile of a global cloud footprint; however, is an equally important consideration.
It may be time to think about why having a standardised global cloud footprint matters. Here are ten good reasons why:
1. Data sovereignty, privacy laws and local regulations are real.
Your business can be impacted if these regulations are not properly followed. Choosing a cloud provider with a strong global footprint gives you the ability to comply with local regulations in the countries where your organisation does business. It also provides the ability to manage your global cloud footprint, which is more efficient and cost effective.
2. Keep your end users closer.
Any organisation wants the right to choose where apps are delivered and where the data is stored. Whether it is about performance, latency issues, data privacy or data sharing. As more of the IT footprint is migrated into the cloud, it is critical to have a provider who offers the flexibility to decide where that footprint lives. These are decisions that should be based on the business, not dictated by your service provider.
3. Simplify with a single global contract.
For many multinational businesses, completing contract negotiations in each country where a business is conducted can be a daunting task that may bring projects to a standstill. Find the right cloud provider that delivers an overarching global contract. It allows your organisation to undergo this process one time which will save time and money for your organisation. In addition, having a larger global contract allows for more power and the ability to negotiate better pricing while standardising costs. This can help when rolling out customer-facing products and applications in which there is the need to present simple chargeback or pricing options.
4. Standardize with a global SLA (Service Level Agreements).
Getting a standard, global SLA (Service Level Agreement) provides the ability to offer that same SLA to end-users. No two cloud providers ever offer the same SLAs. Being able to easily define that across the regions where your organisation does business can help improve service and management of your business SLA’s.
5. Consistent IT service catalogue availability.
Choosing the right cloud provider allows for the ability to build out a standard IT service catalogue, group application templates together and distribute all of it globally with little to no effort.
6. Streamline with a single pane of glass management interface.
Having a standardised management interface greatly simplifies IT operations and deployment methodologies. This covers items like alert notices, IT Service catalogue items, reporting and analytics, and support which then indicates how those feedback into the IT department.
7. Standardise support with ITIL.
When choosing a cloud provider, look for standardised onboarding and support levels that compliment your organisation’s environment.
8. Facilitate the path towards a global cloud strategy.
Many multinational companies are still undertaking the path to a global cloud strategy. Evaluating and ultimately selecting a global cloud provider can facilitate this process. It also provides a framework for your global IT organisation to streamline and standardise operations.
9. Compliance cannot be ignored.
Another key initiative is compliance which needs to be accurately addressed so as not to delay or stall key business activities. A cloud service provider should be focused on global compliance issues. It enables your organisation to standardise this initiative across all the regions where your business is conducted.
10. Innovation can happen anywhere.
As enterprises increasingly rely on innovation to drive new market demand; IT departments need to be ready to support all these activities wherever it occurs. The cloud takes away the need for sizable up-front investments in hardware while also providing the ability to spin up “start-up-like” environments whenever and wherever. Think of it as your global laboratory and that lab can be moved or replicated at any time. It gives optimal flexibility to the innovative projects for your business.
An infrastructure to help clients succeed
At iland, we are always working with our multinational customers to better understand challenges that are faced within an IT infrastructure. Our goal is to provide the tools and simplicity that is needed in all cases.
We have developed a resilient global cloud footprint that consists of 10 data centres in North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific regions. Each state-of-the-art facility is host to the workloads of growing businesses, both local and global, requiring additional capacity, local presence, or sophisticated disaster recovery support. And we have backup facilities at every location.
The expansion into these data centres has been driven primarily by customer needs. Low-cost resources are not enough in leading a successful migration to the cloud, it takes a cloud service provider that can keep up with your business needs while helping you streamline your organisation’s processes in all the places where you do business.
iland is a global cloud service provider of secure and compliant hosting for infrastructure (IaaS), disaster recovery (DRaaS), and backup as a service (BaaS). It is recognised by industry analysts as a leader in disaster recovery. The award-winning iland Secure Cloud Console natively combines deep layered security, predictive analytics and compliance to deliver unmatched visibility and ease of management for all of iland’s cloud services. Headquartered in Houston, Texas and London, UK, iland delivers cloud services from its data centres throughout the Americas, Europe, Australia and Asia.