Out of the fog and into the cloud

Bland: Virtualisation and the cloud have created a new landscape for the channel

As the smouldering ashes of 2009 are left behind, our landscape will never look the same again. And I think one clear lesson was learned last year: you should only pay for what you use.

Virtualisation has been key in this transition to a more on-demand infrastructure, with server virtualisation improving datacentre performance, and desktop virtualisation making devices and locations more flexible. Add to this the growth in cloud and hosted services.

Customisation is the next key element. Through desktop virtualisation, organisations can combine a centralised, virtualised IT infrastructure with the variety and flexibility of standard client computing.

Similarly, cloud development has so far focused on copying the internal datacentre within an outsourced environment. While this has various cost and efficiency benefits, there is more.

Smaller businesses can access enterprise-type software and services, without paying upfront, and other organisations can tap additional resources as and when needed.

Furthermore, businesses can increasingly move their workload between internally and externally provided resources seamlessly, with little or no end user input.

We can transform the IT landscape, slowly rebuilding it into something flexible and adaptable, based on innovation and interoperability. This won't be a familiar landscape but one built, owned and run by people who understand the opportunity.

What began as a centralisation and cost-cutting tool can be taken to another level. A place where the process of doing business is radically different from the current status quo and where changes in the business as it grows are no longer hindered by lengthy, costly and complex IT projects.

This does not mean the end of the IT department, but it frees up IT staff to spend less time on routine maintenance and upgrades so they can focus on projects that can truly help the business.

But it may well be one step backward in order to take two steps forward – and those who don’t keep this in mind may miss their targets.

This also threatens the standard channel business model. But it does not pose a threat to channel partners willing to embrace virtualisation. Resellers must become an integral part of helping businesses and end users understand and implement these new infrastructures.

Kevin Bland is channel partner sales director at Citrix