Cloud-based security, storage and management services are popular favorites among the IT pros who contributed to Network World's annual Fave Raves feature
Spending on cloud services is so far just a fraction of total IT spending — roughly 3% — but the market is growing. IT pros explain what they like about their favorite cloud-based security, storage and management services.
Each year we ask IT pros what they love, and this year several cloud-related products ranked among the favorites.
Spending on cloud services is so far just a fraction of total IT spending — roughly 3% — but the market is growing. According to research firm Gartner, global spending on public cloud computing services will grow 18.5% in 2013 to $131 billion, up from $111 billion last year.
It’s not always easy to impress IT pros with new technology, but those who cited cloud products and services based their favoritism on qualities such as cost savings, productivity gains and security benefits.
[ SEE THE RAVES: 25 IT pros name their favorite products ]
Todd Felker
Todd Felker, for instance, singled out Skyhigh Networks’ Cloud Services Manager, which his company uses to discover what cloud services employees are using and to identify and block any services that pose a security risk.
“It gives me visibility to the growing number of cloud services that my organization is using and helps me create a strategy utilizing the best and most secure services,” says Felker, infrastructure and security architect at Torrance Memorial Medical Center in Torrance, Calif. “Our firewall will allow us to block entire categories of services, but I needed more granular information about specific services as well as usage data to help me understand the needs of my customers and to help craft a smart policy.”
Security favorites
As more end users are accessing cloud applications through Web browsers, organizations such as Move With Us, a U.K.-based property management company, are looking to protect Web content in the browser and prevent data leakage and malware exposure. For that, Anthony Hall relies on Quarri Technologies’ Protect On Q (POQ) software.
“POQ gives me and my team peace of mind that people aren’t lifting data from the browser. I like that it’s easy to deploy and set up policies. My favorite features are that I can stop copying of data and print screen,” says Hall, IT operations director at Move With Us. “We have a lot of people using BYOD, so being able to provide the same access and security on unmanaged devices is huge.”
Eric Montague, president of IT services provider Executech, also finds peace of mind through a cloud security product that protects against cyberthreats. He named AppRiver’s cloud-based SecureSurf Web security software as his favorite product.
“SecureSurf is an easy-to-deploy hosted solution that doesn’t inhibit Web surfing and safeguards users against malicious sites, viruses, inappropriate content or anything that might violate a company’s policy,” Montague says. “I like how I can install the agent on individual machines to ensure those machines are configured for the most accurate website traffic evaluation, even if a user is working remotely or through a non-corporate network. Plus, I appreciate the machine-by-machine reporting of Web surfing activities.”
Cloud storage gains
Adoption of cloud-based storage capacity is driving enterprises to deploy file management systems that can work with both public and on-premises storage.
Drew Bartow describes Riverbed’s Whitewater Cloud Storage Gateway as a big timesaver compared to tape-based data backup. The appliance acts as a broker, providing access to public and private cloud resources.
“Instead of spending hours and/or days tracking down and recalling tapes, then spending hours restoring from the library, in a few mouse clicks and a couple of minutes, the files and/or folders are back and accessible for users, making IT look like heroes,” says Bartow, senior IT engineer at Tipper Tie, a manufacturer of food packaging equipment in Apex, N.C. “No more late night trips back to the office because accounting deleted a file, or a VP needs to see something from a year ago. We can do it from anywhere in the world, regardless of the time of day.”
With Riverbed’s appliance, Tipper Tie has reduced the time spent dealing with tape backup and tape backup administration by more than 312 man-hours a year, Bartow says.
At JSJ Corporation, Nasuni’s storage infrastructure as a service enables the durable-goods manufacturing company to provide secure, high-speed file services to its remote business locations.
Dave De Young
“Nasuni allowed JSJ to deliver a truly global file storage solution to our business sites without compromising our security and data recovery standards,” says Dave De Young, vice president and CIO at JSJ in Grand Haven, Mich. “Because Nasuni places only a nominal load on our high-cost MPLS circuits by utilizing low-cost public circuits, the system is highly cost effective.”
The service “allowed JSJ to move away from a centralized storage strategy (that compromised files access speeds in favor of security and disaster recovery) to a distributed storage services model,” De Young says. “The positive feedback and comments from our business users indicate that file access speeds rival the onsite storage solutions that pre-dated our move to centralized storage.”
Efficiency in the cloud
For some IT pros, the appeal of SaaS is related to accessibility — cloud apps are easy for users to access, which can lead to greater efficiency.
Ledcor Technical Services deployed cloud-based software from ClickSoftware to streamline the scheduling and dispatching of its field technicians. The SaaS suite lets field operations technicians access scheduling and customer information anywhere, anytime, which improves productivity, says Ryan Yada, director of applied technology at the Vancouver, British Columbia, communications company.
Adam Lieb
“ClickSoftware is helping Ledcor to better optimize work order creation, scheduling and call center dispatching, and capture real-time status updates from the field,” Yada says. “We use ClickSoftware to simplify operations, improve customer service and lower operational costs. Being able to respond to customer demands faster and more efficiently is a significant competitive differentiator.”
CEO Adam Lieb of Duxter, a social network for gamers, singled out Teambox, a platform of software-as-a-service applications for collaboration, file sharing and task management.
“Working in a fast-paced environment can come with many sacrifices. One of the big sacrifices can be communication and efficiency. Teambox helps our team stay efficient and connected,” Lieb says. “It’s extremely user friendly and approachable while having a robust feature set. Everyone from our architects to our interns can collaborate and stay on the same page.”
Ann Bednarz covers IT careers, outsourcing and Internet culture for Network World. Follow Ann on Twitter at @annbednarz and reach her via email at abednarz@nww.com.
