Bandwidth key consideration for cloud services

Bandwidth key consideration for cloud services

When it comes to cloud computing, much of the attention is devoted to the new levels of storage and applications that are made available through the service.

However, in a rush to take advantage of the benefits of the cloud, there is a risk that some of the essential hardware will not receive the attention required in order to get the most from the service.

Leased lines, for example, can help provide an important boost to bandwidth, which will inevitably increase as more applications are moved across. And, as Tom Conophy, CIO of InterContinental Hotels Group told ComputerWorld: “If your employees and your users can't access data fast enough, then the cloud will be nothing more than a pipe dream.”

Indeed, the majority of users have become used to high-speed connections and are likely to continue to expect them as systems are moved across to cloud computing, even when the communications are taking place between data centres and storage areas.

There is a further problem concerning leased lines which many businesses are failing to look at: the fact that real-life performance of systems can differ greatly from quarantined tests. Theresa Lanowitz, founder of independent analyst firm Voke, Inc., told the news source: “Most companies are testing their infrastructure in a silo, not in an integrated environment.”

Ms Lanowitz added that this means that they are unable to ensure that applications, backups and storage will meet a defined quality of service when they are implemented in real-time. Taking the time to research the possible locations for bandwidth bottlenecks in a network and installing leased lines to tackle them could help improve the overall performance of a cloud-orientated system.

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