Microsoft on a smooth transition to cloud

Bradley Borrows, Microsoft New Zealand Azure and server business group lead, looks at server virtualisation and the path to cloud.

Computing is undergoing a seismic shift from client/server to the cloud, a shift similar in importance and impact to the transition from mainframe to client/server.

Speculation abounds on how this new era will evolve in the coming years, but we all have an amazing opportunity to craft what the future looks like for ourselves but also the organisation and customers you work with or for.

Gartner predicted that the server virtualisation software market would grow by 28% through to 2013, reaching $US6.2 billion.

As we accelerate through 2013 and with 2014 getting nearer by the day, the focus on the cloud and how virtualisation is an enabler to this next generation of computing is driving a level of interest or opportunity greater than anything we have seen before.

The cloud and what it is and how it can benefit an organisation are driving tough conversations, but it is also providing new opportunities for companies to evolve or break through into new areas and add value in a way that would have been too hard a few years ago.

For companies and partners, virtualisation allows the ability to transition seamlessly from their current software and/or server to a new server or even a new environment – whether that be on premise, hosted or in the cloud.

Virtualisation offers organisations a means to reduce total cost of ownership of their technology, while increasing business agility and decreasing maintenance costs.

In the same way that virtualisation can help free up resources and maximize efficiency within an organisation, the same can be said for virtualisation of servers in large scale data center deployments – all working to free up space and to create greater efficiency.

As a result, organisations that have undergone a virtualisation transformation will find it easier to move into the cloud. But enterprise cloud services like Microsoft, Amazon and Google’s are not dependant on IT departments having a virtualised infrastructure in place.

Organisations stand to benefit greatly from moving into a cloud environment – and virtualisation allows for a smooth transition throughout this move.

Benefits of the cloud should see reduced costs, greater agility for remote or mobile workforces, the ability to better share resources, greater efficiency and reliability, as well as removing the issues associated with maintaining and updating IT infrastructure.

To get there, start by looking internally and embracing the journey to the cloud by virtualising yours or your customers environments.

This will open doors for the future and provide opportunities that would have in the past not presented themselves.