MSP Cloud
What Mom Never Told You: Keep Your Head in the Clouds, ITEXPO East Miami
February 03, 2012
Growing up and transitioning into our professional careers, we were always told to remain focused and keep our heads out of the clouds. However, this week at the Cloud Communications Expo, collocated with ITEXPO (News - Alert) East 2012 in Miami, the knowledgeable panels and participants discussing the advantages and best practices of cloud-based communications have said just the opposite.
As with any panel or round table discussion, each party tends to bring a different perspective to the topic at hand; however, all trends that have been shared this week at the Miami Convention Center point to one central idea: the more cloud integrated into your business processes, the better. To conclude Day Two of the Cloud Expo yesterday, Chris Flynn of AculabCloud, a Gold sponsor of the event, gave a presentation regarding the transition of moving from legacy systems to cloud-based telephony; a process that many in the enterprise are hesitant to embrace fully.
Flynn explained that the beauty of cloud-based technology platforms is that in order to reap the benefits of moving to the cloud, it doesn’t have to be a complete transition for your business, which makes many companies more likely to adopt cloud into their communication processes.
Utilizing a hybrid cloud solution allows businesses to continue using their legacy systems where they require more reliability and power. However, moving towards cloud-based solutions is the logical choice for capital expenses and ease of process.
Flynn mentioned that the education process for developers entering the field has changed dramatically as well. Engineers are entering the workforce with knowledge of new languages that are geared more towards hosted technologies. In order to maintain a traditional legacy system today, a high level of expertise is required which can create issues since the knowledge retention in most enterprises today is decreasing.
Cloud-based solutions are not only easier to maintain, since they utilize APIs and languages that are more prevalent, they are also easier and faster to deploy. One of the major benefits of cloud solutions that gives them a leg up on legacy systems is the opportunity for scalability. Cloud-based solutions are elastic, according to Flynn, and can scale up or down with a company as it grows or downsizes. Paying only for what a company uses, cloud solutions not only ensure a more scalable solution, but help the company to cut costs where necessary.
To conclude the final day of the Cloud Communications Expo today, three informative sessions will take place regarding topics such as Unified Communications (News - Alert) in the cloud, moving business processes to the cloud and integrating social into the enterprise by way of cloud-based solutions.
Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO East 2012, happening NOW in Miami, FL. ITEXPO offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. For more information on registering for ITEXPO registration click here.
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Stefanie Mosca is a Managing Editor for MSP News™, with a particular focus in wireless technologies as well as mobile and IP communications. She holds a master's degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University and a bachelor's degree in communication from the University of New Haven. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page or follow her on Twitter (News - Alert) @stefaniemosca.
Edited by Rich Steeves
