IPC cites Hybrid Cloud as key step towards business success

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Local cloud and data center services pioneer IPC (IP Converge Data Services, Inc.) believes that Hybrid Cloud setups, a combination of public cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and physical hardware-driven systems, are key business growth strategies, especially for medium to large enterprises that already have operational IT systems in place.

Businesses of today face challenges that not only dampen growth but moreso threaten their very survival. As the digital age forces companies to rely heavily on ICT (information and communications technology), business processes are changing and IT systems have become mission-critical, thus compelling CTOs to seek IT infrastructure options that bring high systems availability without breaking the bank or getting into a fight with the CFO.

A Hybrid Cloud configuration involves the use of public cloud resources combined with hosted physical machines to run and maintain specific systems for an organization. There are companies that would like to take advantage of the cloud but would also like to maintain data or applications using their own physical resources. This setup is a viable solution to a slew of business concerns, i.e. maintain control over a particular component or set of data within a system, backup and disaster recovery, security or compliance issues, and data sovereignty. In addition, the public cloud components allow companies to scale up or down as needed and pay only for what is used.

According to IPC’s director for product management & marketing Niño Valmonte, a hybrid approach enables companies to maintain control of an internally managed private cloud while relying on the public cloud as needed. Though they operate independently, they can be setup to communicate over an encrypted internet connection in order to fulfill specific tasks.

For instance, during peak periods in the retail industry such as the holidays, applications, or even portions of applications of an order entry system can be migrated to the public cloud, thus providing more stability. This will also allow for more flexibility and scalability.

“IPC is in the best position to help companies achieve a hybrid cloud setup that is efficient, secure and effective, being both a highly experienced Internet data center operator and pioneer cloud IaaS provider in the country,” Valmonte said. “We leverage our state-of-the-art data center facilities and robust network infrastructure to provide the entire spectrum of IT infrastructure solutions ranging from data center co-location, hosted private cloud infrastructure, hybrid cloud, virtual private cloud, and public IaaS.”

On the rise

Ease of use and customization possibilities are key drivers for businesses shifting to hybrid cloud setups. A study by the International Data Corporation (IDC), revealed that over 70% of enterprises in Southeast Asia are integrating hybrid cloud in their IT strategy. According to IDC, enterprises realize that adopting hybrid cloud is important to reduce cost and achieve business transformation, agility and scalability.

“2016 will be a big year for solutions built on hybrid cloud architectures with 65% of Asia Pacific enterprises to commit for its implementation,” said Chris Morris, Vice President, Cloud and Services, IDC Asia/Pacific.

IDC believes that the big drivers for increased implementation of hybrid clouds are IT’s continuing quest for optimized infrastructure, and the ability of solution builders to source application and infrastructure components from multiple providers to construct a hybrid cloud-based solution.

“With increasing cloud spending, many enterprises will have begun use of hybrid solutions without direct involvement. With the business unit managers increasingly buying their own cloud solutions, hybrid cloud architectures can proliferate, and sometimes not be aligned with the enterprise architecture,” added Morris.

Another study, made by Frost & Sullivan, shows that Hybrid IT is the “new normal” for companies in the Asia-Pacific. “At their core, successful hybrid cloud strategies support the delivery of high-value applications and services to the business, while at the same time driving cost and inefficiency out of the IT infrastructure,” the report said.

Hybrid cloud environments are becoming more popular in the marketplace, as they enable IT to remain flexible and respond quickly to market demands, as well as providing lines of business with the resources they need to succeed. Additionally, cloud users recognize that different workloads or applications perform optimally in differently configured environments: configurations that work well for one application or workload may not work for another. And many workloads share data that is drawn from different sources outside of where the application itself resides. As such, businesses are integrating a variety of infrastructures to create a complete, hybrid cloud environment.

Boosting digital shift

“Adopting a hybrid cloud strategy is definitely key to boosting digital transformation. It allows companies to utilize the cloud for scalability while keeping critical data and processes in check whether in their offices, or colocated in IPC Data Center. This way, companies enjoy a highly flexible and customizable IT environment,” added Valmonte. “Digital is the New Normal, and the time to make the digital pivot is now.”

According to Gartner, digital transformation has become a key factor in future business growth and success, and the latter will be defined by how well companies, organizations, and governments leverage the technology to enable partner and customer engagement across a wide range of digitized processes. 

IPC, through its carrier-grade, telco-neutral data centers, provides highly secure colocation services as well as its IaaS product, IPC CloudServers, or a hybrid setup that involves both. With expertise in the full range of IT infrastructure implementations, IPC is able to efficiently assist businesses in setting up their own hybrid systems. 

Learn how IPC’s infrastructure-as-a-service can solve real life business problems at cloud.ipc.ph.

About IPC

IPC (IP Converge Data Services, Inc.) is an Internet data center, telecommunications and cloud services company, providing local and regional enterprises with managed data services and business solutions at international standards. Certified with ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management Systems and ISO 27001:2013 Information Security Management Systems, the foundation of IPC's business is customer satisfaction, ensured through high-quality on-time service delivery, best practices, and a personalized, "boutique" approach to clients. IPC is an ePLDT company.

To know more about us, visit www.ipc.ph, Like us on Facebook, and Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, and YouTube.

IPC upholds enterprise digitization at 2016 Philippine Cloud Summit

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​​​Local cloud computing pioneer IPC (IP Converge Data Services, Inc.) called on enterprises to pivot to digitization at the 2016 Philippine Cloud Summit held Wednesday (June 29) at the SMX Convention Center at SM Aura Premier, BGC, Taguig. The event, dubbed “IoT: The Pinnacle of Digital,” showcased the global shift towards a digital mindset, fueled by the growing use of the Internet of Things (IoT).

PH Cloud Summit. Local cloud computing pioneer IPC (IP Converge Data Services, Inc.), an ePLDT company, hosts this year’s 2016 Philippine Cloud Summit. IPC President Reynaldo R. Huergas (in photo) opens the discussion dubbed as “IoT: The Pinnacle of Digital” that showcased the global shift towards a digital mindset, fueled by the growing use of the Internet of Things (IoT).

“Digitization itself has changed. By definition, it used to refer to business tools that drive operational efficiencies. Today, it is more than that. Digital is a frame of mind that allows organizations to create and engage markets in a disruptive manner and redefine the economy,” said Reynaldo R. Huergas, IPC President.

This is supported by recent data about IoT spending. In the Philippines, latest estimate (of Frost and Sullivan put the spending) at $55.1M in 2014, growing to $766.8M in 2020, an annual spending growth of around 55 percent for six straight years. Huergas noted, “This could still be larger; it is possible that local enterprises are not yet sold to the value of IoT or find the service risky in light of high-profile hacking incidents. But all of that, we believe, will be dispelled.”

King-Yew Foong, Research VP and Chief of Research for Communications Service Providers at Gartner, an information technology research and advisory company, made a bold prediction that in the next 30 years, changes will be more dramatic that they will surpass the changes of the past 300 years. He stressed that enterprises have to continuously innovate to sustain their growth, citing industries such as insurance and automotive as early adopters of IoT globally.

According to Foong, among the benefits that enterprises will get from embracing IoT are the reduction of operating costs, capability to provide a differentiated customer experience, and finding new business models and income streams. But while these are attractive enough, adopting an IoT ecosystem has its fair share of challenges, including but are not limited to cybersecurity, integration, and unclear business benefits. For Foong, it is imperative to educate all stakeholders and to choose the right IoT partner for it to take off in a big way.

Speakers in the afternoon breakout sessions were from CloudSigma, Nexusguard, Imperva Incapsula, CR8V Web Services, Salesforce, Time Doctor, PLDT Enterprise, PayMaya, and FireEye.

Apart from bringing together an elite lineup of speakers to tackle various aspects of enterprise IT, IPC also formally launched at the event the Cloud Community of the Philippines (CloudComPH), a vendor-agnostic community for cloud users and enthusiasts. According to IPC, it will serve as a venue for the sharing of ideas and best practices, whether technical or operational, among individuals who build, develop, maintain, and use cloud computing infrastructure, platforms, and applications in the country.

While IoT is still continuously developing, experts claim that it is here to stay. As digital is the new norm for enterprises and beyond, the cost of doing it is still a lot less than the cost of not doing it. Pivot or perish, as they say.

PLDT Enterprise leads digital transformation discussions at the 2016 Philippine ICT Leadership Convention: Digital Now!

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Philippine companies get a chance this week to take a hard look at how digital technologies are changing the rules of the game for their businesses at the 2016 Philippine ICT Leadership Convention.

PLDT Executives and partners open the technology exhibit at the 2016 Philippine ICT Leadership Convention. Shown in photo from left to right: ePLDT Chief Operating Officer Nerisse Ramos, PLDT Executive Vice President and ePLDT CEO Eric R. Alberto, PLDT ALPHA First Vice President and Head Jovy Hernandez, IDC Asia Pacific Managing Director Dr. Christopher Holmes, and Cisco Philippines Country Manager Louie Castaneda.

Hosted by PLDT Enterprise, the corporate business group of PLDT, the convention will run from June 20 to 21 at the Marriott Grand Ballroom Manila and will focus on how disruptive technologies collectively called “SMACS” – short for Social, Mobility, Analytics, Cloud and Security – are reshaping the strategies of enterprises and organizations.

Invited to the convention are top level executives, business leaders, and decision makers from the country’s leading enterprises across various industries. Presented in association with premier global market intelligence provider IDC, the convention will provide these business leaders with in-depth information on the future of the digital enterprise and the breakthrough technologies that will prominently figure in their business roadmap.

“Today, going digital is no longer just an option for enterprises and organizations. The Philippine ICT Leadership Convention will highlight the strategic challenges and opportunities that digital technologies present to Philippine companies,” said PLDT Chairman and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan. 

“As consumers become digitally-connected regardless of demographic, enterprises must also transform themselves by leveraging on new technologies to change the way they operate, and more importantly, to transform the way they engage with their customers and employees. The convention will help enterprises make this shift and usher in a more digitally-empowered Philippines,” he added.

Aside from presentations by industry leaders and technology experts, the 2-day convention will also allow guests to experience various digital technologies within the enterprise environment through workshops, exhibits, and plenary discussions.

“The advent of new digital platforms has introduced disruptive technologies that are changing the way enterprises are interacting with consumers and the digital world. Through the convention, PLDT, along with industry leaders, will provide our insights to serve as a knowledge base for enterprises, enable them to take advantage of these disruptive technologies, and promote growth in their businesses,” said PLDT Executive Vice President and ePLDT CEO Eric R. Alberto.

Attendees can also participate in breakout workshops focused on specific technology tracks that include Data Center and Cloud, Big Data and Analytics, M2M and Internet of Things, Digital Engagement, Cyber security, and Unified Communications and Collaboration. These topics, designed to provide a holistic approach to the benefits of technology tracks to enterprises, will enable participants to better understand the solutions that are at their disposal, and how these can significantly impact their businesses.

EMC Announces Products To Speed New Application Innovation, Reduce Cost and Accelerate The Journey To The Hybrid Cloud

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“Redefine Possible” means reducing the cost of running application workloads while accelerating innovation through new application workloads.

EMC XtremIO 3.0 adds new inline data services, expands family and delivers unmatched TCO with a new XtremIO Xpect More Program. New EMC VMAX3 redefines enterprise storage with the industry’s first open enterprise data service platform – 3X performance and a 50% reduction in TCO.

EMC Corporation today announced significant new product releases across its Flash, enterprise storage and Scale-Out NAS portfolios – collectively helping today’s IT organizations “Redefine Possible” and accelerate their journey to the hybrid cloud.

Over the last few years, organizations that have harnessed the megatrends of social, cloud, mobile and big data to build new applications have been able to transform their industries. The recipe for IT transformation is conceptually simple – invest in new applications by reducing investment in the existing application estate. However, the reality is that there is 29% annual data growth in existing application workloads, a continued 58% “drag” incurred by supporting infrastructure applications on business applications, and the ever escalating need for faster performance for specific application workloads.

Organizations that successfully reduce the cost of running their existing application estate can use these efficiencies to fund new application development – building a new generation of mobile and big data applications that will redefine their business. These architected applications need a way to bridge the management of both new and existing application workloads without creating further infrastructure silos.

Today’s releases of EMC® XtremIO™, EMC VMAX3, EMC Isilon® OneFS, and the availability of EMC ViPR® 2.0, ViPR SRM 3.5, and the EMC ECS™ Appliance address the issues and many more. These solutions help IT organization “Redefine Possible” as they accelerate their journey to the hybrid cloud.

New Product Highlights

Now available, EMC ViPR 2.0 and EMC ViPR SRM software-defined storage enable customers to build a modern storage infrastructure on commodity hardware.

Breakthrough hyperscale cloud storage infrastructure – EMC Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS) Appliance – is now available. EMC has shipped the first ECS Appliance, a single system totaling three Petabytes, to The Vatican Library.

David Goulden, CEO, EMC Information Infrastructure

“Organizations harnessing the four IT megatrends of social, cloud, mobile and big data to build new applications are redefining their industries. IT must drive cost efficiencies to fund the new applications businesses are asking for. Although these new applications will be architected differently, they cannot become another IT silo. Today’s announcements deliver IT organizations with the ability to redefine possible, by dramatically reducing the TCO of existing application estates, and accelerating new application delivery on their journey to the hybrid cloud.”

Ronnie Latinazo, Managing Director, EMC Corporation Philippines

“Customers are dealing with the reality and challenges of managing a variety of workloads – while supporting new demands to build new applications, both on-premise and in the public cloud. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Today’s new innovations from EMC deliver customers the foundation needed to manage existing and new application estates and accelerate their journey to the hybrid cloud,” Ronnie Latinazo, EMC Managing Director, said.

EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset — information — in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at www.EMC.com.

Connect with #RedefinePossible. Stay engaged with EMC by following EMC Corporation on Twitter @EMCCorp and on Facebook. 

EMC, ECS, ViPR, VMAX, Isilon and XtremIO are either trademarks or registered trademark of EMC Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks used are the property of their respective owners.