Right to reply: Does cloud computing hold the key to universal UK broadband?
- Added:
- Jul 15, 2010
The coalition government is seeking fresh ideas on how to deliver universal broadband speeds of at least 2Mbps by 2012, but is this enough? David Palmer, Senior Product Manager for Networks & Connectivity at managed services provider Star, argues that clod computing may hold the answer to the UK’s web connection debacle.
We are seeing a growing trend of UK businesses using Cloud computing and On-demand services and the primary enabler for this is higher bandwidth.
Cloud computing would simply not be practical on ADSL speeds of sub-2MB due to large file sizes and the general working speed of applications over this bandwidth. Fast Broadband opens up a new era of possibilities with business applications now being hosted in data centres instead of being managed in-house and on a company’s own computers.”
In the current economic climate many businesses find this an effective way of accessing the latest technologies as there is no need to purchase any hardware or software when you take services from a Cloud computing provider. But what does having your business critical application run by a service provider mean for your business?
Having your applications delivered via a fully managed and secure UK data centre gives a business the flexibility and choices they would not otherwise have if they tied themselves to large capital investments to purchase the technology outright. Further, they mitigate the financial and operational risks associated with implementing new and large IT systems. Ultimately, this is a very effective way for UK businesses to cut their costs and promote a flexible workforce that can work from anywhere. An example of this is the ability to shut expensive satellite offices and implement home working. Super fast broadband facilitates this by serving the user with secure access to everything they need from any Internet connection.
Fast broadband enables the community of the UK’s small and medium sized organisations, many of which are unable to afford the latest technologies, to become more efficient and competitive. For businesses who deal with large files such as engineering or architect’s drawings for example, sending and receiving data can be frustrating.
With many people in a given organisation doing this, the network capability can quickly grind to a halt. Service providers can mitigate this bottleneck – thus making the business more responsive, competitive and efficient. Fast broadband helps businesses to re-think their business practices and come up with new solutions to their challenges.
By David Palmer
Senior Product Manager
Star
To find out more about how cloud computing is helping UK businesses today please download the free Cloud Computing guide from: www.star.co.uk/cloud
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