Cloud Computing and the New Network Center

But Can Cloud Services Meet These Needs?

Cloud vendors have already recognized the huge potential of hosting a virtual backup site for large enterprises. I have seen marketing slicks that give you the ability to map your current network operations center and then make a one-to-one match to the cloud computing offering. In effect, the cloud vendor creates a virtual version of your NOC.

Legacy? No Problem!

The first question that usually comes up is related to legacy hardware, such as mainframes. IBM has already addressed this in its offerings, and several other vendors have IRMA3270 support in their service offerings as well. Your hot site will be a fully virtualizes creation of your current environment. This is especially attractive to government agencies and large financial customers that have a large investment in legacy systems.

A New Way of Thinking

Because hot sites are generally located in the same physical region, a large-scale disaster could render getting to the hot site impossible. Even worse, a disaster could impact the hot site and the business would certainly come to a halt.

With a cloud computing backup site, employees can connect to data from their homes or wherever they can find an Internet connection. They will not have to physically go to the hot site to engage in business. Of course, this will require a fresh new COOP procedure that addresses the new way of responding to such an event.

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