Synoptek White Paper CLOUD COMPUTING: ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL

Synoptek White Paper CLOUD COMPUTING: ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL

ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL Perhaps the most powerful advantage of cloud computing is that you get to make choices. Popular advertising would have you believe there is one singular thing called the cloud that you are supposed to go to for all of the powerful cloud services and information. In reality, there are a multitude of clouds located all over the world that are delivering different services and a virtual world full of information. Each of these clouds is actually a data center that delivers many of the services you would formerly have found running in your own on-premise infrastructure. It s just easier to deliver higher-quality service and charge you less when cloud providers create the services on infrastructure in their own data center and connect you to them via the internet. The Best News is Choice The best news is that this multitude of different data centers compete with each other in many ways, and as the customer you are the beneficiary of that competition. You get to choose which data center you d prefer to obtain your services from, and it doesn t have to be just one data center for all of them. Each can compete to deliver best-of-breed and you can choose your winner. Since cloud costs less than running your own, and each purpose-built data center is designed and operated for its own specific function, you end up the winner on cost and quality.

Applying This to Core Cloud Computing Services With all these cloud data centers delivering all of these utility, productivity, and other services, the most important part of the puzzle to pay attention to is the core compute services at the center of your IT strategy. These are the private cloud and public cloud services you use to run your primary line-of-business applications and manage your most important workloads. The biggest players in the cloud market are vying to have you choose their data centers to obtain these core services from, including Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, IBM Softlayer, Google, RackSpace, and others. Each of these companies is a monolithic behemoth trying hard to create a one-size-fits-all environment for everyone to simply subscribe and plug in to. On the other side of this equation are midsized firms, like Synoptek, with deep expertise and long history serving companies like yours. Because we are not behemoths, we achieve a level of intimacy with customers that the giants simply cannot. Our consultative experts are available to explore each customer s individual needs and design solutions which address them far more precisely. Our information architects are prepared to adapt our offerings to better customize those solutions. Like the behemoths, we have built multiple data centers so we can bake in allimportant functionalities like high-availability, data backup, disaster recovery, and continuity of business. While we perhaps cannot match the depth of their investments in sheer compute and storage capacity, network and data security, redundancy, faulttolerance and more, we most certainly have built infrastructures that far exceed those possible for most individual companies. This provides the latitude necessary to serve a broader cross-section of customers than ever before. Synoptek cloud services are appropriate for many different applications in small, medium and large companies with highly differentiated, welltailored solutions.

ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL If there s one thing we ve learned from working with and competing with the large providers, it s that one size definitely does NOT fit all. That includes our own as much as any other. Working with a broad diversity of customers to help them select the best cloud resources and the best possible solutions we ve learned a lot about how our cloud services compare with those offered by the largest providers. We ve clearly identified that we scale better on price than the larger providers. For small workloads, they may be able to leverage size to keep price low, but as a customer s needs scale larger and larger, our pricing becomes more and more preferable by far. The larger a customer s virtual machine (VM) footprint, the better our economics become. We ve seen that our offerings are far superior for static workloads, while large provider cloud offerings may often be superior for more bursty dynamic ones. Large providers depend largely upon economies of scale growing out of shared infrastructure to be able to compete. Customers whose internal policies require dedicated hardware, rather than multi-tenant, will find it either exceedingly difficult or exceedingly expensive to obtain it from the behemoths. Smaller, more nimble providers like Synoptek routinely provide dedicated hardware to those customers who require it.

Similarly, customers who wish to mix functionalities on their own infrastructure with others running on a large cloud will often find the integration challenging. This is something cloud providers like Synoptek do for a living. We can build environments to suit specific requirements far more readily and at much more attractive pricing than our larger competitors can. Support Not a Fit Either More and more we see large cloud providers moving their support function offshore, and as they do the support provided dwindles down to not much more than answers to basic questions. Lacking is the presence of personalized support from experts who are familiar with each customer s environment and have significant documentation and history to refer to. This may suffice for small VM applications but not nearly appropriate for mission-critical workloads.

Fit Mitigation It may be that recognition of their own challenges has driven providers like Microsoft to create programs that help customers mitigate these shortcomings in their large cloud offerings. One good example is a relatively new program from Microsoft. According to a Microsoft statement, The Cloud OS Network (COSN) is a strategic group of service providers that can deliver differentiated valueadded services to end-customers based on the Cloud OS vision. COSN is a worldwide group of elite cloud service providers, partnering closely with Microsoft to offer technically validated, cloud-based infrastructures and application solutions. Members of this network combine Microsoft technology with their hosting expertise and geographic specialization to provide flexibility and choice for hybrid datacenter solutions. In part due to the extensive audit scrutiny with which candidates are evaluated, there are currently only 157 approved members of COSN worldwide, and only 18 operating in the United States according to the COSN page on the Microsoft website. To become authorized, Synoptek underwent this extensive auditing by third-party experts engaged by Microsoft to assure that we have the requisite quality of infrastructure and management in place to properly support an Azure-based environment. As a result, Synoptek now extends the choices available to clients by offering both Synoptek s own cloud services as well as Microsoft Azure cloud services implemented and produced on Synoptek infrastructure. This eliminates the need for customers to choose either/or. They can now obtain both from Synoptek, including Synoptek s superior brand of close-to-the-customer, deep-engagement support. Whatever cloud services a given customer may need, they will now find an ideal fit with Synoptek.

Customers who wish to otherwise combine on-premise resources with cloud resources will find that easily accomplished with Synoptek cloud. Creative Cloud Construction This means that customers can be as creative as necessary in crafting cloud configurations that satisfy their unique requirements. As an example, a healthcare client with many unusual business associates (BAs) whose HIPAA compliance requires unique supervision can negotiate a custom agreement with Synoptek that will enable us to facilitate that. Try that negotiation with a large vendor. Customers have grown to appreciate having the ability to dial-back to a specific point in time before a problem was created to recover a file that has been corrupted or copied over. Large providers don t supply that kind of granularity. Synoptek does. One of the advantages of Microsoft Azure is the ability to scale from on-premise infrastructure into the Azure cloud to temporarily utilize additional resources without having to purchase more hardware that may end up sitting idle afterward. Azure from Synoptek will allow customers to combine their Active Directory for Windows Server 2012 R2 with Active Directory for Azure to make the entire environment appear as one for simpler use and management.

Your Cloud Relationship The most important element as you continue your migration to taking greater and greater advantage of cloud computing economics is the partner who guides you. An objective, platform-agnostic partner like Synoptek assures that every choice you are offered is a choice that benefits you most, not the cloud provider, not some other interest. Their continuing relationship with you depends upon their ability to keep you very satisfied with the cloud services you use to support your business every day. When choosing cloud-based solutions to your biggest information management and operational challenges, don t let sheer size be your guide. Choose a proven partner with a long track record, extensive professional resources, multiple quality data centers, and the kind of relationship builders you know you can trust to keep your best interests at the forefront of the conversation.

Synoptek provides world-class strategic IT leadership and hyper-efficient IT operational support, enabling our global client-base to grow and transform their businesses. Speak with our experts! 888-796-6783 Synoptek offers personal attention and value to every client, every time, and our commitment to customer service is unmatched in the industry. Synoptek s comprehensive, tactical information technology services include; core infrastructure management using advanced toolsets supported by our 24 7 Enterprise Operations Centers, managed cloud and hosting, security services, end-user service and support, including 24 7 Help Desk, applications support, business continuity and disaster recovery services along with expert IT consulting. With over 475 employees (90% IT Professionals) and geographically diverse data centers, Synoptek serves more than 2,500 active clients located around the world operating their critical IT networks and systems. Operating for over 20 years, Synoptek is consistently recognized for thought leadership and growth as confirmed by industry awards and recognition. Synoptek s 100% focus on Managed IT Services provides exceptional value and improves our clients businesses, not just their IT environment. We truly do Think Globally andact Locally. If you accept that technology is critical to your company and that the management and support of that technology is equally important, then give us a call and learn more.