By Lauren K. Smith, Director of Marketing and Communications for Venture Technologies
Cloud computing is becoming more and more mainstream with cloud solutions like Apple’s iCloud and Amazon’s Cloud Drive. I’d like to take a closer look at the cloud and how it can benefit businesses.
Technically, the cloud is a highly efficient, rapidly scalable, virtualized pool of resources used to deliver IT functions as a service via the Internet. In other words, the “cloud” a metaphor for services delivered via the Internet. These remotely hosted or cloud-based services relieve organizations of the burden and expense of owning, operating, and maintaining in-house IT assets.
“A simple example of cloud computing is the smart phone, such as the Android or iPhone,” said Gerard Gibert, CEO of Venture Technologies, a southeastern IT solutions company in Memphis. “There are hundreds of apps delivered via the cloud, such as an airline reservations system. You can check in, reserve cars, and change your seating. All that data is stored in the cloud, but the application and the Internet allow you to consume the app’s service on your mobile device.
“There are actually three types of clouds,” added Gibert. “Public clouds are operated and maintained by cloud service providers such as Amazon, Apple and Venture Technologies. Public clouds service multiple organizations and users on a shared basis. A private cloud is a cloud architecture that is owned and operated for the exclusive use of a single organization, and hybrid cloud combines the two types. For instance, a user might leverage Venture’s Hosted Microsoft Exchange Service via their public cloud while accessing their business applications via their private cloud located on their premises.”
A company can benefit from public cloud services by using a data storage company’s infrastructure rather than investing in hardware, software, backup, maintenance, security, real estate, power and the IT staff necessary to maintain an in house environment.
“In many cases, the infrastructure delivering those services is actually shared so our subscriber customers are paying for a piece of our cloud making it more cost effective,” Gibert said. “Customers are getting the benefit of their own private cloud without having to invest in it and manage and maintain it.”
By using cloud computing, businesses can host their own applications or use licensed applications such as Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Outlook) allowing end users to securely access their applications and data from anywhere and on virtually any device. For those interested in control and customization of in-house infrastructure with the benefits of hosting in a reliable, secure Data Center, companies such as Venture offer physical or virtual dedicated servers and virtual desktops.
“We have thousands of customers depending on our Data Center so reliability and security are a top priority,” Gibert said. “Our VTCloud is designed with the best practices for resiliency and reliability with no single points of failure. In fact, our Data Center has had only 2 hours of downtime since 2001, and we even kept running through Katrina. All of our back-up systems and the redundancy and resiliency that we engineered into our center became quite valuable during that time when the Jackson, Miss., metro area was dark for several days.”
About Venture Technologies
Venture Technologies is an IT solutions company that provides a variety of services including Network Infrastructure, Network Security, Voice and Unified Communications, Servers, Storage and Virtualization, and Video and Collaboration. Venture also provides VTCloud services from its 10,000 sq. ft., SAS 70 Type II Certified Data Center. The company serves private and public sector clients across the Southeast with locations in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. For more information, visit ventech.com or call 800.844.8895.
