The Internet, or public cloud, is a wild and wooly place. You know never how fast a Web page is going to load, if indeed it sometimes ever will. Running apps across the public cloud can be more fraught with peril. This isn’t just a Drudge Report page you are waiting for, it is an app your business depends on.
This sketchy situation is actually a terrific opportunity for IT solutions companies and service providers. That is because, in large measure, this situation can be fixed. And you can make money by solving this very problem. That is the message behind a panel at this week’s ITEXPO “QoS in the Cloud: Your Revenue Guarantee.”
There are definitely struggles in various parts of the cloud and transport markets. As mentioned, customers are not always happy with their cloud experiences, especially as they try to access richer and richer applications. And for transport providers, business is tough and margins are tighter than red carpet gown.
Cloud application customers need faster access, and transport and other players need better margins. With QoS the two can meet happily in the middle.
QoS is part of an overall approach to providing a high performance cloud that allows clients to run more and more demanding applications.
The panel represented two factors in a successful cloud equation. Mary Stanhope is VP of product and marketing at Global Capacity, “a telecommunications information and logistics company that improves the efficiency access networks globally. Through its One Marketplace Access Exchange, the Company brings together customers and suppliers in an automated platform that provides leading access network solutions,” as the company describes itself. “Global Capacity delivers its innovative solutions to purpose-built integrators, telecommunication carriers, managed service providers and enterprise customers globally.”
Stanhope believes that for serious applications, using the public Internet is just asking to be disappointed. Instead a transport company can insure that you have a proper high-bandwidth connection from the provider to the customer site.
That is step one. Then you want to be sure the service provider is using QoS to make sure that side of the network isn’t a bottleneck.
NetScout Systems represents the other side. The company provides “Unified Service Delivery Management enabling comprehensive end-to-end network and application assurance. For over 25 years, NetScout has delivered breakthrough packet-flow technology that provides trusted and comprehensive real-time network and application performance intelligence for the network, applications and users,” the company said. “These solutions enable IT staff to predict, preempt, and resolve network and service delivery problems while facilitating the optimization and capacity planning of the network infrastructure.”
NetScout's Shalita
Steve Shalita is VP of marketing for NetScout. Shalita sees three areas that impact cloud performance -- the speed of the service provider network, the transport, and the client’s network, particularly the network edge. To get proper performance, one must address all three of these aspects. In short, one must look at the network from end to end, both panelists agreed.
The good news is that service providers and partners can make money by offering QoS, and helping clients make sure their transport is up to snuff, as is their own client network.
Edited by
Rory J. Thompson
