A Clouded Space

by Hesam Lamei

Every day it seems a new cloud company is born, merged, or purchased. With such a crowded space, many small businesses don’t even know where to begin with a cloud solution, as they all look, sound, and appear to be the same. It seems like the cloud industry is frothing over. Whether it is software, storage, or data management, cloud providers all appear to have the same pricing model structure, the same or similar hosting locations, and look so identical it is hard to differentiate the best way to go. There are just too many options. It makes you think, how will SMBs choose the right provider? It all depends on the viability, expense, and how much they have already dedicated to their own hardware infrastructure.

With that said, everyone and everything continues to move to the cloud. And, I guess to be honest it’s surprising even to me that my own company, Aventis Systems, Inc., is joining the cloud offering space. Why? Cloud was not an option in the past because of limited Internet bandwidth and prohibitive ISP network infrastructure cost. Now that Internet speed limitations have been lifted, it’s no longer a limiting factor for businesses to decide where to put their servers, either on premise or remotely. Since we have the background and expertise, we want to help our customers with their decision to retain on-premise infrastructure or move to the cloud in a scalable and affordable fashion.

We can all accept that cloud solutions will be part of almost every business, with enormous growth potential. When it comes to hardware and the cloud, companies can better utilize shared equipment in a cloud setting. Cloud technology allows companies to decide where to place servers, pay for only what they are using, and access best of breed offerings. It allows Aventis Systems as an IT solution provider to offer more options and additional flexibility of those offerings, whether its hardware or cloud infrastructure. This official arrival of cloud services means organizations of all sizes have access to best-of-breed software and hardware from anywhere. It completely changes the game.

The crazy thing is the cloud is not new. It’s just a new buzz word for an old technology that was actually invented by IBM back in the 70’s, so it’s surprising to me that many still haven’t figured this out yet. In the 80’s there was a fairly decent system of Internet providers doing the same thing. Now those data centers are just being managed by other providers, which cause potential security exposure and another new set of problems. The other problem is that no one has been able to figure out how to be profitable in the cloud, not even some of the biggest companies out there.

So, as we try to make sense of it all, the industry finally seems to be making steps to clarify and monitor cloud offerings. In fact, huge industry announcements were made just in time to slide into the first quarter of 2014. In a recent New York Times article, Cloud Computing’s Watershed Week, Quentin Hardy recognized a number of noteworthy moves made by big companies in the cloud industry, particularly in giant systems of connected computers, stating that these moves suggest cloud computing and the Internet of Things are moving from their rough pioneering days to something bigger and more stable. Hardy specifically mentioned Google’s plan to move its cloud computing business to a single entity, with a pricing model indeed to hold customers by enticing them to build ever cheaper and more complex software, and Cisco announcing it would spend $1 billion on a kind of “cloud of all clouds” project. He also mentioned numerous other mergers and plans, including the announcement of a consortium of big multinationals that will set engineering standards for wiring people, machines and computers together in large industrial settings, establishing practices.

It looks like the cloud is actually starting to take shape. So, do small businesses wait and see or jump on board? If you want my opinion, there are some very good reasons to use the cloud, despite all the positive and negative hype. But that doesn’t mean all on-premise infrastructure gets thrown out. The combination of both in a true hybrid environment lets you use best of breed technology to accomplish all the benefits this cloud buzz is touting. There is one thing I know for sure: both private and public cloud are going to be an integral part of any business going forward.

Lamei was named as one of Ernst & Young’s top entrepreneurs in 2012, and his company Aventis Systems also recently received the distinct honor of being named to Inc. Magazine's seventh annual Inc. 500|5000 for the second year in a row. An exclusive ranking of the nation's fastest-growing private companies, the list represents a comprehensive look at the most important segment of the economy — America's independent entrepreneurs. Only 5,000 out of approximately seven million privately-held U.S. businesses were named to the 2013 list.

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