Retailers now have the opportunity to undertake cloud transformations using secure, managed solutions that deliver seamless operability across private and public clouds as well as ensuring maximum flexibility and cost effectiveness.
More organisations are certainly looking to implement multi-cloud deployments – from a current 36% to 64% within three years – because such an approach helps them better manage their myriad applications most efficiently across their businesses.
With retailers preferring not to resort to the radical move of a Big Bang-type approach involving jumping wholly in with the large public cloud providers, the Trust Cloud hybrid solution could be the answer. It operates as a hybrid multi-cloud platform that is available as part of a secure managed networking solution.
This involves approved data centres, delivering various upsides for retailers who are looking to transform their cloud activities but who feel it is too much of a leap to go fully into public cloud solutions. The robustness of the Trust Cloud approach has been enhanced by its work with Ark Data Centres and Crown Hosting whose private cloud solution adheres to the best security practices and sustainability credentials.
The Trust hybrid solution involves a cost-efficient model using low energy data centres and knowing exactly where the data is held, which is in contrast to the hyper-scaler public cloud providers such as Microsoft Azure and AWS. In addition, for established retailers it is much easier for them to run many of their old applications in the private cloud environment rather than in a public domain structure where they will not be so well supported. The hyper scalers are more suited to hosting contemporary applications.
What truly helps retailers with their cloud journey is the partnership Trust has with Nutanix and its hyper converged solution, which enables the running of applications across all cloud types. Whether it is Azure, AWS or the Trust Cloud it provides a flexible solution. It enables Trust to provide a secure managed hybrid cloud solution that encompasses both private and public cloud as well as still enabling retailers to keep some of their legacy applications in their own data centres until they are ready to move them out in the future.
At Trust these flexible solutions are placed into multi-year contracts with an OpEx model whereby retailers pay monthly or quarterly, which helps them avoid any onerous large capex deals. This is a model that is proving increasingly popular with commercial organisations across many sectors.
This hybrid approach enables retailers to begin the journey of transforming their cloud infrastructure and move at a pace that suits their individual organisations and how they operate their technology and IT departments. For example, Trust has been working with HMV – that has traditionally used a third-party to host its infrastructure – as it sought an organisation to run some of its workloads in the cloud. By utilising the capabilities of the Nutanix solution Trust has taken some of HMV’s processing requirements into the hybrid cloud.
For retailers with IT departments of a modest size they are undoubtedly best suited to working with a trusted partner when dealing with cloud initiatives as they can give them all the attention they require whereas taking the route of dealing directly with the hyper scalers can leave them bereft of help. Unless they are the size of a global corporation then the likes of Azure and AWS may not provide them with a direct relationship. They will be largely left to their own devices.
In complete contrast, at Trust we focus on letting IT teams concentrate on supporting their businesses rather than dealing with the connectivity complexities across cloud solutions and other general operational activities that help keep the lights on. When this is wrapped in a managed service structure with a flexible OpEx commercial arrangement then it can help retailers massively with navigating the challenges around transformational cloud journeys.
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Written by Chris Boyes, Trust Systems | marketing@trustsystems.co.uk