Cloud

Cloud solutions deliver flexibility, agility, and the potential to experiment and innovate, as they integrate your data, people, partners, processes, and technology on a simplified platform. Cloud enables seamless performance and the sharing of data, platforms, and applications in real-time. However, working out the right solutions specific to your needs and integrating and migrating services requires resources and experience not often available within organisations. There is so much complexity in the marketplace with Cloud Services and at aera, we can understand and deliver the flavour that best fits your business. There are three flavours of cloud services available to businesses and we at aera provide them all depending if you need Private Cloud, Public Cloud or a Hybrid Cloud (both Private and Public converged)

Cloud enables seamless performance and the sharing of data, platforms, and applications in real-time. However, working out the right solutions specific to your needs and integrating and migrating services requires resources and experience not often available within organisations. As a local provider, we take the time to understand your business, create a customized solution and help you adapt it to suit your needs as your business evolves and grows. And we’re a single point of contact for support. No waiting in phone queues to talk to someone you’ve never met. One local company, taking complete ownership of your private cloud environment, so your staff can focus on their jobs.

The peace of mind that comes with knowing your data is safe and sound, a purpose-built solution that adapts to meet your ever-evolving business needs and exceptional support from a local trusted Technology Partner: that’s aera’s Private Cloud.

Public Cloud platforms are widely regarded as the best “end goal” however, has it’s risks around security and access controls if not setup, managed or monitored effectively. At aera, we offer a wide array of consulting and support solutions to help augment your Public Cloud efforts.

There are several Public Cloud Solutions in the marketplace and ensuring you choose the right flavour is paramount to your business and every business is different.

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service)

‍Ready-to-use web-based applications with no setup or installation required – normally just a credit card! No access is available to the infrastructure or data at the back-end other than possibly through an API.  Most organisations use Google Apps, Office 365, and a multitude of small web-based applications.

PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service)

‍Refers to cloud-based platform services that applications and data can be added on to. Examples include Azure SQL, Azure AI Platform, Google App Engine or Force.com.

‍IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service)

‍The most similar to Private Cloud in that you can run your own servers and have full access at the operating system layer, without having manage hardware, storage or backups. Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are the biggest providers at this layer.

A hybrid cloud is a mixed computing environment where applications are run using a combination of computing, storage, and services in different environments—public clouds and private clouds, including on-premises data centers or “edge” locations. It is particularly useful where businesses have dedicated servers in a Private Cloud however, would like to utilise Public Cloud Services such as Office 365 Email / Sharepoint Online / MS Teams / etc

aera can separate private and public services as an integrated service thus offer a complete hybrid package. aera can deliver to organisations complete access to their private clouds themselves to “Self Manage” and then aera only manages the public cloud service which we then integrate into your infrastructure. In practice, an enterprise could implement hybrid cloud hosting to host their e-commerce website within a private cloud, where it is secure and scalable, leaving thier brochure site in a public cloud, where it is more cost effective (and security is less of a concern). Alternatively, an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering, for example, could follow the hybrid cloud model and provide a financial business with storage for client data within a private cloud, and then allow collaboration on project planning documents in the public cloud - where they can be accessed by multiple users from any convenient location.

A hybrid cloud configuration, such as hybrid hosting, can offer its users the following features:

Scalability Whilst private clouds do offer a certain level of scalability depending on their configurations (whether they are hosted internally or externally for example), public cloud services will offer scalability with fewer boundaries because resource is pulled from the larger cloud infrastructure. By moving as many non-sensitive functions as possible to the public cloud it allows an organisation to benefit from public cloud scalability whilst reducing the demands on a private cloud.

Cost efficiencies Again public clouds are likely to offer more significant economies of scale (such as centralised management), and so greater cost efficiencies, than private clouds. Hybrid clouds therefore allow organisations to access these savings for as many business functions as possible whilst still keeping sensitive operations secure.

Security The private cloud element of the hybrid cloud model not only provides the security where it is needed for sensitive operations but can also satisfy regulatory requirements for data handling and storage where it is applicable

Flexibility The availability of both secure resource and scalable cost effective public resource can provide organisations with more opportunities to explore different operational avenues

Depending on your requirements, aera can provide you a Public Cloud Solution, a Private Cloud Solution or a Hybrid Solution being a mixture of both Private and Public Cloud.

At aera, we specialise in these solutions maximising efficiency and flexibility whilst keeping Security front of mind at all times.

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