All signs point to the cloud. After all, companies of all sizes and across every sector want the quick and easy accessibility to their workloads and applications from anywhere that cloud offers, whether it’s private, public, hybrid or multi-cloud.
Companies headquartered here in the Midwest, with branch offices around the country and customers with multiple locations, are increasingly moving to cloud solutions. Businesses headquartered elsewhere, with locations throughout the Midwest, require cloud access well. Regardless of whether it’s a far-off data center, a localized data center or even edge compute, the real key is the connectivity.
Within an organization, there’s a lot of connectivity and interconnectivity and sometimes it’s not apparent how many cloud relationships there actually are. Enterprises rightfully want to focus on their business goals, and leverage the critical applications and tools that best help accomplish their objectives. They don’t necessarily want to (or can afford to) have a large IT staff to focus on the connectivity piece of their cloud initiative and reaching leading cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google, Oracle, IBM, SAP, Nutanix, Salesforce, Alibaba and more.
The big question is: What’s the best way for companies today to connect to their mission critical applications and data in the cloud, while optimizing factors such as performance, security and cost?
The importance of private connections to the cloud
The internet is also not always the fastest, most private or most secure option when it comes to reaching cloud services.
More companies are finding that establishing a dedicated (and secure) Ethernet network connection from their premise directly to cloud providers offers many benefits, including reduced latency, better security and cost savings.
There’s no cookie cutter approach to cloud connectivity since different businesses are at different stages of their cloud evolution. However, connecting to cloud providers over the public internet often does not meet the high-performance requirements today’s businesses require.
We recently hosted an informative roundtable discussion with Tony Thakur, Chief Technology Officer of Great Plains Communications, Todd Cushing, President at 1623 Farnam, and Daniele Loffreda, Head of Virtualized Edge Solutions Marketing at Ciena, discussing Cloud Connects in the Midwest. Topics included:
- Key cloud adoption and connectivity trends
- Cloud tools – what’s needed for migration and integration?
- New cloud on-ramps for direct connects
- Common hidden cloud fees (and how to avoid them)
- How does cloud connectivity tie to network strategy?
Download and read The Midwest Insider’s Guide to Connecting to the Cloud to learn why IT leaders are shifting to direct cloud connects to fully realize the business value of cloud services and keep their companies at the forefront of technological innovation.
How do factors such as network performance and hidden costs affect the impact cloud services have on an organization? Stay tuned for additional insights from the Cloud Connects in the Midwest webinar!