What is cloud computing?

If you search for cloud computing on the internet you'll be presented with hundreds of definitions of what it is. That's because it's a term that has evolved to fit around an offering that has, in many cases, always existed. Cloud means different things to different people and that's fine.

From Onyx's perspective what we offer is Infrastructure as a Service, or IaaS, and we have been doing so for many years. We are very experienced at providing hosted solutions and that's why we're so good at IaaS. We've been working with the building blocks of cloud, be it VMware, Citrix or Microsoft or Linux products, since their earliest incarnations.

So what is IaaS?

IaaS is exactly what is says on the tin. We aim to provide as much of your IT infrastructure as practically or appropriately possible, as a service. This typically involves you no longer having your own expensive server infrastructure and encompasses the provision of everything from desktop & server operating systems through to security & data backups, all as a service.

Running from our robust virtualisation platform, this gives a highly resilient architecture that would normally cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to implement. Instead you're presented with a low monthly fee that can vary depending on processing demand or the number of staff you employ. It's all about taking the IT infrastructure and Services that would normally be the management worry of the customer and making these someone else's problem - namely us.

No longer do you need to worry about RAM, storage, bandwidth, power, hosting, backups - this is now our problem. The neat demarcation line for the provision of services is the internet (commonly represented on diagrams by a cloud, hence the name).

What are the cost benefits?

In a traditional IT environment you have the capital cost of IT equipment, the cost of supporting and maintaining it and the cost of replacing/upgrading everything when it goes obsolete.

In a cloud-based model you have no capital costs and the initial operational costs are zero since everything is provided as a service. Fixed monthly costs give you a stable base on which to plan for growth and avoid surprises. In the same way that you pay your electricity and gas bill, you now have an IT bill.