Cloud computing: how to remain agile in a changing economic climate
Greg McDaid, Fujitsu’s Managing Director, outlines the flexible, scalable, pay-per-use model that can bring about real agility and cost efficiencies.
Cloud computing is an alternative way of delivering IT services
Fujitsu recognises the benefits to be gained from cloud computing which is a flexible, scalable, pay-per-use model for the way IT services are delivered and consumed. With its pay-as-you-go model, cloud moves businesses’ IT costs away from capital expenditure, encouraging them to become more agile and adaptable to change.
Cloud’s elastic model means that IT capability can be flexed to mirror changing business demand and it enables IT consumers to have much greater transparency over their costs and to spend more on efficiency and growth.
Businesses will have a connection charge as they would with other utilities such as gas or water, but thereafter they will pay on a consumption basis.
Fujitsu’s commitment to cloud computing is evident in its $2 billion capital investment in the emerging technology.
Our objective is to ensure that 30 per cent of our company’s business will be based on the cloud by 2015. Fujitsu’s local challenge is to continue to perform the functions that have made us one of the world’s leading IT companies while exploiting our global investment in the cloud.
Access to secure IT without the capital investment
Fujitsu’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is a cost effective alternative to IT ownership. Organisations host applications and data on Fujitsu’s business-class server and data storage pools for the time required, paying only for the capacity needed, with no lock-in. They have the confidence that their data and systems are secure, whilst achieving the level of resilience and performance required by business.
Knowing that the infrastructure is safe for business, customers can use IaaS as a seamless extension to their IT estate. Using IaaS as a flexible infrastructure to reduce costs, they deploy applications in hours and avoid capital expenditure on servers, storage and data centre premises.
Flexibility to meet changing business demands
By using pooled resources and having the flexibility to meet changing business demand in a fluctuating economic climate, Fujitsu’s cloud infrastructure can also offer businesses substantial cost savings.
Fujitsu is a global ICT company with a large local presence and an understanding of the Northern Ireland marketplace. With headquarters in Tokyo, Fujitsu was established in 1935 and supports customers in over 100 countries. Globally, it has 172,000 employees, with 900 in Northern Ireland. Its annual revenue in the UK and Ireland is approximately £1.7 billion.
Our key customers in Northern Ireland include the Northern Ireland Civil Service, the Northern Ireland Office, the Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunals Service, the Department of Justice, Driver and Vehicle Licensing Northern Ireland and the library boards.
We work with our customers to deliver the benefits of the cloud
While the cloud is still an area of experimentation and early adoption for many organisations, for Fujitsu, the technologies underpinning cloud are not. For more than a decade we have been working with our customers to create a cloud technology and services portfolio that meets their requirements, and encompasses purpose-built cloud data centres, sensor-based cloud applications, cloud integration software and SaaS delivery.
For example, the Houses of Parliament’s web hosting is currently built on Fujitsu’s cloud platform. It is scalable, is housed in a tier 3 data centre, has a 24/7 service desk and is priced on a consumption basis. Fujitsu also hosts business for the Post Office, the Financial Services Authority and the Home Office.
Investing over $2 billion globally
As a Japanese company, Fujitsu has a slightly different perspective from its competitors. Our ethos regarding the cloud has not been to talk about what we are going to do, but what we have already done.
Our $2 billion investment in cloud technology is helping our customers reshape their IT systems and their business in a changing world to drive efficiency, growth and responsible business practices.
Driving innovation
Through its independent software vendor (ISV) programme, Fujitsu is currently working with dynamic SMEs with the best breed of technologies to keep our solutions innovative. It also allows UK and world-wide software businesses to leverage the Fujitsu Global Cloud Platform to grasp business opportunities previously out of reach due to constraints of geography or cost.
The ISV offers choice to fit business needs by offering the following multiple cloud services and engagement options:
• Powered by Fujitsu: whereby we stand behind ISVs and allow them to go to market directly to their customers from our cloud platform
• Promoted by Fujitsu: whereby we stand alongside ISVs and jointly support their activity
• Partnered with Fujitsu: whereby, once the ISV becomes mutually beneficial, it partners with Fujitsu in going to market and Fujitsu sells the ISV’s offering as Software as a Service (SaaS) into specific vertical markets (e.g. retail, banking, local government) through our own sales and distribution channels to our UK and Ireland (and potentially global) customer base.
Fujitsu also offers portal access to a standard catalogue and easy and simple fulfillment, backed up by billing and payment services. This makes life easy for small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and their customers.
Enabling a prosperous society
Fujitsu’s CSR programme recognises that if a company wishes to exist in a location for a long time, it must put something back into the community. That’s why Fujitsu works closely with Business in the Community on programs such as Adopt a School, Time to Compute and Time to Read, and sponsors Sentinus, which promotes science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects in schools throughout Northern Ireland.
Ultimately, Fujitsu’s cloud computing offering is about establishing a computing utility that sits at a heart of a community and allowing businesses to maximise their potential.
Benefits of Fujitsu’s cloud offering
• Realise substantial cost savings
• Value for money (by paying only for what you use)
• Improved business efficiency
• Enabling new levels of agility (in a constantly changing economic environment)
• Reducing power consumption and environmental impact
For more information, contact:
Tel: +44 (0) 870 242 7798
Email: askfujitsu@uk.fujitsu.com
Web: www.fujitsu.com/ie
