More and more organizations are employing a cloud-first strategy, moving their operations to the cloud. While relying on cloud software has many advantages, examining the service architecture is important because it often says something about the capabilities of the cloud solution.
Cloud-Centric and Cloud-Enabled are two terms that are easy to confuse. In addition to a strong resemblance, the two terms are frequently used interchangeably to describe an application or solution that is accessible via the internet. But the name is where the resemblance ends.
When it comes to seizing the inherent benefits of a cloud environment, the difference between Cloud-centric and Cloud-Enabled couldn’t be wider. In most cases, taking down a hardware server and moving it to the cloud, like for like, simply will not enable a cloud service with the benefits customers expect.
A cloud-centric solution (also known as cloud-native and cloud-ready) needs to be developed with the cloud principles of multi-tenancy, elastic scaling and easy integration and administration in its design.
This blog is going to focus on multi-tenancy, and although at first glance it may look as though this is something that only really matters to service providers, it has a fundamental impact on the way a customer experiences the service.
Multi-tenancy, where multiple independent instances of one or multiple applications operate in a shared environment – logically isolated, but physically integrated, is perhaps the most important element for a customer to look for. It’s most commonly associated with the ability to share server resources, thus driving down the costs for all customers.
But multi-tenancy means far more to end customers in practice than just sharing server resources – it also means that each of the multitude of individual tenants keep the software platform constantly evolving.
When hundreds or even thousands of other businesses are using the same operational infrastructure, all of them benefit from each of the different ways in which they’re challenging and improving that shared infrastructure. For instance, new security and compliance features requested by one customer are being implemented on the platform seamlessly, for all customers, with no additional cost, and thanks to cloud-centric architecture – with zero downtime. All the while, the platform provider is gaining insight into its customer’s business, their needs and their wants and so are able to compare with all other customers and draw powerful conclusions on roadmap and evolution.
So multi-tenancy is one of the key differences between a legacy application “moved to the cloud” and destined for rapid obsolescence and one that was “born in the cloud” and that will continue to evolve with the cloud and the wealth of possibility it creates.
So how do you avoid falling into this trap when choosing solutions as part of a cloud first strategy?
Ask your supplier these questions:
Validate their cloud credentials, by asking:
EveryonePrint Hybrid Cloud Platform (HCP) is a true Cloud-centric service, designed and developed for the cloud, based on a multi-tenant platform. It’s one of the few Print Infrastructure solutions that can claim to be “Born in the Cloud” and our customers are reaping the benefits in terms of deployment times, and the evolution of one of the fastest print engines in the world.
Contact us and learn how Hybrid Cloud Platform can optimize your print infrastructure and remove the many pains print often provide the IT service department, and at the same time reduce your operational cost for print infrastructure.
Roy Neckling
CEO at EveryonePrint
