Why More and More IT Leaders are Embracing the Cloud

Brad Askew, the Director of Partner Development and Worldwide Channels at Secure Infrastructure & Services, was a recent guest on the TechnologyAdvice Expert Interview Series. The series, which is hosted by TechnologyAdvice’s Josh Bland, explores a variety of business and technology landscapes through conversations with industry leaders.

In this episode we discuss IT migration and cloud computing, their SIAS partner program, the shifting competitive environment, and the upcoming ITEXPO event.

Below are the four biggest takeaways from the conversation.

  1. The cloud is taking over, which is impacting infrastructure as a serviceWe’re right in the midst of the next big thing. Two years ago, if you were to walk into a CIO’s office or an IT director’s office and suggest to them that they trust their data to the cloud, they would’ve kicked you out of their office.But what’s happened in the last couple of years is that they’ve seen other companies employ cloud strategies and they’ve seen the benefits those companies have experienced through doing that. It’s been seen at the CIO, IT director, and even at the CEO level. There’s more C-level buy in. And that awareness spreads and companies want to adopt. Secure Infrastructure and Services generally steps in at that point and takes their hand and walks them through the process.
  1. The cloud isn’t all or nothingIt was about a year or ago when IBM predicted that 50 percent of systems would be moving to cloud storage in the next five years. We’re seeing that happening. It’s something that’s picking up more and more momentum.But there are a lot of misconceptions about it.A lot of companies think that it’s an all-or-nothing proposition. The reality is — it’s not all or nothing. What makes sense? What workloads would you like to get rid of? What workloads would you like to get off of your system to free up some space? That’s really where it all starts.That also gives businesses the chance to kind of dip their toe into how the cloud works and how it will work for them. They’re doing that now and they’re discovering the cloud. Then they start coming up with innovative things they can do with this new tool available to them.
  1. Changes in perception of the cloud have made it more widely acceptableIn the conversations I’m having, the conversations have gone from, “We’re really concerned about security,” to what I’m hearing more and more, which is, “Hey, you know what? You’re not a 100 percent secure anywhere.” The one thing they know about going to the cloud is that they’re now leveraging enterprise-level security for the infrastructure comparable to the infrastructure in a data center.
  1. ITEXPO is the show to attend for this industryWe found ITEXPO and it’s a phenomenal show. It’s exactly the kind of audience we need to be in front of and who needs to be hearing our message. We’re really looking forward to the discussions that we’ll have, what we can learn, as well as what we can teach. Obviously, we’re looking to come out of this with as many leads as possible. We want to walk out with reseller prospects and we want to walk out with end user leads that we can send to our reseller. We feel like from what we’ve seen with the show and the research we’ve done, we think this is going to be just a prime feeding ground for success.This podcast was created and published by TechnologyAdvice. Interview conducted by Josh Bland.