Pinnacle, in partnership with Huawei, is conducting a survey with business decision makers, like yourself, to understand the current usage and needs for organisations regarding cloud. We invite you to be part of the latest research into cloud in South Africa to help us understand the needs of organisations choosing and implementing effective cloud solutions.

Complete the survey here, and you could win a Pinnacle voucher valued at R2 000!

This study aims to take a closer look at, among other things, how concerned organisations are about their sales teams’ performance in a competitive environment and how agile they are when it comes to collaborating effectively.

“The main objective of this survey is to understand where customers are in their cloud strategy, explore their confidence in using the cloud, and moving applications to and from the cloud, as well as between clouds,” says Charlene Oosthuizen, cloud solutions manager at Pinnacle.

Cloud bridges the gap

Managing workloads for home users and office-bound employees can be challenging for any organisation, but effective cloud solutions dramatically bridge this gap.

“Utilising cloud bridges the gap between ‘at home’ users and office-bound employees, which allows chief information security officers to manage workloads and change applications as and when the need arises without the complexity and procurement cycles of traditional server implementations,” says Oosthuizen.

“Not understanding the cloud and not ensuring that your IT teams are comfortable with the use of cloud could be more detrimental than having data centre servers and applications on site.”

Oosthuizen stresses that there is not a one-size-fits-all when it comes to cloud.

Be clear on cloud

When it comes to cloud, what was once primarily available to large enterprises is readily accessible to small and medium-sized businesses. However, in an age of technology accessibility, how does an organisation facilitate reliable and cost-effective cloud deployment?

“For an organisation to consume resources in the cloud, there should be a plan for what exactly is required. The strategic alignment between your operations and IT should be clear,” says Oosthuizen.

She cites an example: If you have a quarterly flash sale online, your CISO should understand the strategy, timelines and plan for the increased traffic on your servers.

“This process can be easy, and costs can be managed and planned for to a great extent, but if there is no plan for the project, the costs will be high, and therefore the rewards will be limited. By implementing a yearly plan on where IT is going and what resources are required throughout the year will mitigate your risks and assist your organisation in managing costs and eliminating any unplanned or hidden costs.”

Oosthuizen says organisations should plan for cloud and plan “within” cloud.

Clear understanding

When it comes to the success or failure of cloud projects, it’s crucial to have a clear understanding of the “why”, “how”, “when” and “who” of your organisation’s cloud requirements.

“Make sure you ask, ‘Why are we utilising cloud?’ Also, ‘How are we securing our data in the cloud and our end devices not in the office?’ It’s unnecessary to have all your applications in the cloud, and not all applications are fit for the cloud or are ‘cloud-ready’, but these questions are critical to your daily operations. It’s necessary to determine whether your organisation has the skills needed to manage your cloud.

“There are definite and clear trends in South Africa when it comes to cloud and we’re undertaking this study to determine whether these trends are moving towards private or public cloud and if CISOs are utilising the cloud for their mission-critical applications,” says Oosthuizen.

Thank you for your input and we wish you luck in our lucky prize draw!