Stop thinking hardware and start thinking capacity when hosting

Following the launch of their Auckland based cloud service, kiwi ISP HD have urged Kiwi businesses to start changing the way they think about computing resources.

"The entire nature of computing resources is changing in front of our eyes.  Where businesses used to invest extensively in hardware and dedicated IT personnel, we see cloud based technology in time making this practice redundant." says CEO Ben Simpson.

"Basically, the rapid scalability of the cloud allows companies to utilise unlimited resources at the drop of a hat. If your application grows because your business or web services expand, you get the advantage of expensive infrastructure at your fingertips.

"Now, companies can outsource the costs of their internal IT infrastructure to a dedicated provider that can afford to deliver much higher performing resources as well as dedicated support staff. In other words, a business that requires significant IT resources can reduce its CAPEX and IT loans incurred paying contractors to develop their own internal infrastructure.

Simpson says that as New Zealand businesses rush to sign up to cloud services, it's important to keep in mind the need for redundant capacity at the provider end which characterises true cloud services.

"Although we have the lowest prices by far in terms of cloud resources per unit in New Zealand, we've been sure to maintain that our cloud is a 'Real' cloud, meaning we've doubled the resources required for every single account.

"One of the core features of a real cloud is high availability and high redundancy, from the networks to the disks to the physical computing power.

"We're not overselling our capacity like other New Zealand providers, because we want to retain this pure failover capacity.

Simpson noted that there were still some misconceptions in the New Zealand landscape regarding cloud services, especially in relation to perceived costs and data security.

"On a month to month basis cloud services do seem comparatively more expensive.

"However, one of the key advantages that you pay for is the fact that if anything goes wrong in the middle of the night, it won't be you having to wake up and fix it.

"You can sleep easy knowing that you have around the clock support for your infrastructure.

"More holistically for your business, because of the massive CAPEX and maintenance cost reductions as well as the added value of the infrastructure support, the real cost over time will actually work out cheaper.

"In terms of security, these fears are somewhat of a myth as data on our cloud is actually much more secure.

"This is because it's backed up every day off site from our redundant platform.

"Also, due to the high redundancy of the system, the failure of an individual piece of hardware won't actually have any effect.

Simpson says that HD's role as a Data Center and ISP has given him a unique insight into the need for cloud resources in New Zealand.

"Taking into consideration our Telco experience as a UFB provider, we see clients demand for big data every day.

"With this in mind, over time I see clients moving away from the traditional practice of buying physical hardware and installing it in our Data Center, often at costs of tens of thousands of dollars, to potentially delivering these requirements at half the cost as an on-demand spend.

"As far as HD goes, we just want to make sure we're right there at the cutting edge to deliver these products, as I've got no doubt that there is a major change underway in the New Zealand IT industry.