CLOUD COMPUTING 101

HANDBOOK

WESTCON RECOMMENDS MICROSOFT SOFTWARE

CLOUD 101
Introduction to Cloud Computing ...................................................................................................................1

- So what is the cloud?

- Public Cloud

- Private Cloud

- Hybrid Cloud

Technology Evolution...........................................................................................................................................3
Stages of Technology Evolution.........................................................................................................................5
Cloud Computing and You..................................................................................................................................6

- The Backdrop: Online Banking

Your business and Cloud Computing...............................................................................................................8

- The enterprise opportunity

- What does the cloud do for IT?

How do I deploy to the cloud............................................................................................................................8

Which Cloud will work for you...........................................................................................................................9

- Public Cloud vs. Private Cloud

- Accessibility

- Security

- Selecting either a Public or Private Cloud

- The new darling The Hybrid Cloud

Products in the Cloud.........................................................................................................................................10

- What is this aas thing?

Mythbusters - The truth of Cloud Computing...............................................................................................11

Westcon Groups approach to cloud ................................................................................................................12

- How can we help?

- Our services

- What is our differentiator?

Cloud Roadshow - how can we help you........................................................................................................14

Glossary of IaaS......................................................................................................................................................15
Generic Cloud Computing and General Computing Terms........................................................................16

INTRODUCTION TO CLOUD COMPUTING

So you have heard about the cloud. In fact you may even be using the
cloud in your business. But do you really understand what the cloud is?
Furthermore do you realise the business opportunities it could present to
your organisation and where to take this next?
At WestconGroup Southern Africa we have undertaken to give you a
snapshot of the cloud, the business opportunities it presents to your
company and a quick guide on what it really means to be in the cloud.
So what is the cloud?
There are so many definitions on what cloud computing is. But we are going to simplify it even further.
The cloud is a metaphor for the Internet and transacting over the Internet. The cloud is not limited by hardware,
cloud computing means that you store, access, transact over and work in/over the Internet.
To understand what the cloud is you need to know what it is not.
The cloud is not your hard drive that is considered local or physical infrastructure
The cloud is not your company network that is still your internal LAN or WAN
The cloud is not just the Internet the Internet as we now know it is not just a web page filled world
The cloud is not your data centre again that is local or physical infrastructure
But then even though IT created this notion of cloud computing they took it further and created even more
clouds. No these arent cumulus, stratus or cirrus. They are instead the public cloud, the hybrid cloud and the
private cloud.
Lets look at a definition of these now to create context but know we will unpack their role in your business
a little later.

CLOUD
SECURITY

NETWORK

STORAGE

EUC

BUSINESS
APPLIANCES

WEB
APPLICATIONS

SOCIAL
MEDIA

OTHER

DATACENTRE

DATACENTRE CAN BE:

ON OR OFF PREMISE:
- HYBRID
- PRIVATE
- PUBLIC
* EUC - END USER COMPUTING

PRIVATE CLOUD
CORPORATE DATACENTRE
BUSINESS
APPLICATIONS

SECURITY LAYER
NETWORKING LAYER
WORKLOAD
MOBILITY IN THE
HYBRID CLOUD

DATACENTRE

HYBRID CLOUD
CLOUD SERVICE PROVIDER

MICROSOFT DATACENTRE

CLOUD

GOOGLE DATACENTRE

DATACENTRE

PUBLIC CLOUD
AMAZON WEB SERVICES
- WAZE
- FACEBOOK
- PINTREST

Public Cloud - A public cloud is based

on a standard cloud computing model,
where a service provider (think Google
or Amazon) makes resources, such as
applications and storage, available to
the general public over the Internet.
Public cloud services may be free or
offered on a pay-per-usage model. *

Private Cloud - Private cloud (also

called internal cloud) is a marketing
term for an enterprise computing
architecture thats protected by a
firewall. Promotion of the private cloud
model is designed to appeal to an
organisation that wants more control
over their data than they can get by
using a third-party hosted service.

Hybrid Cloud - A hybrid cloud is

a cloud computing environment in
which an organisation provides and
manages some resources in-house
and has others provided externally.
It marries the best of the private and
the public cloud and gives the user the
ability to still critical business processes
(data) onsite.

Cloud computing is really a no-brainer for any start-up

because it allows you to test your business plan very quickly
for little money. Every start-up, or even a division within a
company that has an idea for something new, should be
figuring out how to use cloud computing in its plan.
- Brad Jefferson, CEO and Co-Founder of Animoto

TECHNOLOGY
EVOLUTION
Mainframe
Making it Real - Technology Evolution Time Line
The Internet, was designed in 1974, though it did not
open up until the 1980s.
According to Banking and Finance on the Internet,
edited by Mary J. Cronin, online banking was first
introduced in the early 1980s in New York. Four major
banks - Citibank, Chase Manhattan, Chemical and
Manufacturers Hanover - offered home banking services.

www

1985

1992

NETWORK FILE SYSTEM:

The file system that brought
us to the age of network
storage. No longer would
your data be hostage to the
computer in which it was
created or to backup tape.

THE BROWSER:
It made the Web
work for the rest
of us and became
publicly available.

LIGHTWEIGHT DIRECTORY ACCESS

PROTOCOL:
The universal administrative assistant
(mostly in the form of Microsoft
Outlook/Exchange) for the cubicled
middle rank and a nursemaid for their
bosses. Broadcast.com becomes one
of the worlds first online radio stations.
Amazon.com began as an online
bookstore and has gone on to form
one of the greatest ecommerce sites the
internet has ever seen.

1995
WINDOWS 95:
32-bit pre-emptive multitasking made
possible everything that has come along
for the desktop since including the
graphical Internet and Mac OS X.

1997
BROADBAND:
Cable and Digital Subscriber Lines
start to make an appearance
in homes, and telecommuting
becomes a real option.

1989

1996

WORLD WIDE WEB:

Invented by Tim Berners-Lee,
it would soon change the
way governments, business
and people operate.

OUTLOOK:
Outlook.com is a free webbased
email service run by Microsoft. One
of the worlds first webmail services,
it was founded in as Hotmail.

1993
E-MAIL:
Electronic mail goes back to
the 1960s, but -it really started
taking off with Web use. By 1997,
the volume of business e-mail
surpassed that of regular mail.

1998
GOOGLE:
Wed call it the portal to the Web, except portals
arent this easy to use. The search bar is rapidly
becoming the sippy cup of culture with more than
partial thanks to Wikipedia, Googles query shortstop.

VIRTUALISATION
FOR X86
ARCHITECTURES:
Making the most of
what you have.

2015

2008

SPOTIFY:
Spotify reaches 75million paid
for users in June 2015. Spotify
is a Swedish commercial music
streaming, podcast and video
service that provides digital rights
management-restricted content
from record labels and media
companies.

NASAS OPENNEBULA:
Nebula is currently an Infrastructureas-a-Service (IaaS) implementation
that provides scalable compute and
storage for science data and Webbased applications.

2002
MICROSOFT.NET FRAMEWORK:
A virtual machine independent of
programming language. The future
of Microsoft development.

1999

2005

WI-FI:
The network computer Libre!
BLACKBERRY: Life support for
your government executive,
with its push technology
making the difference.

YOUTUBE:
Youtube.com
was launched.

2001
WIKIPEDIA:
The Wikipedia online encyclopedia
is founded by Larry Sanger and
Jimmy Wales.

2003
SERVICE ORIENTED
ARCHITECTURE:
SOA and Web services
pave the way for a new
generation of online
government services.

2010
OPENSTACK:
Rackspace Hosting and NASA
jointly launched an opensource cloud-software initiative
known as OpenStack. The
OpenStack project intended to
help organizations offer cloudcomputing services running
on standard hardware.

2013

2007
FACEBOOK API/GOOGLE
OPEN SOCIAL API:
Social network
programming goes
mainstream.

GOOGLE GLASS:
Google Glass launched to
the public. Google Glass is a
type of wearable technology
with an optical headmounted
display (OHMD).

2003

2009

SKYPE:
Skype launches its
free VoIP software.

UBER:
UBER launches and changes the
face of public transport.

STAGES OF
TECHNOLOGY
EVOLUTION

could move about. In this era the Internet was born

and it started shaping how we did things. Ok so we
missed a few momentous steps in this but we dont
want to give you a history of computing in its entirety
but rather a quick view of the cloud.

<

+ 10 YEARS

<

Internet of
Everything

<

+ 5 YEARS

Autonomic
Computring

<

+ 3 YEARS

<

Cloud
Computing

<

Mobility &
Virtualisation

<

Mainframe

Whats next? The guys with the big brains are

suggesting that the next phases of IT, of which
traces are emerging, are Autonomic Computing
and Artificial Intelligence. But thats ahead of us. Lets
focus on where we are In the cloud.

<

With the mainframe, we then moved to smaller

mainframes or servers. After this we took a giant leap
with the notion / concept of virtualisation were we
said that by making use of software we could make
one server / mainframe believe it was many. So IT
shrank and paved the way for mobility to be born.
Suddenly we werent strapped to our desks and we

HOW LONG WE HAVE BEEN IN THIS STAGE

AI

In order to see where we are going we need

to understand where we have been. Where did
tech start?

So the Internet, which is in simple terms is the mother

of Cloud Computing, came the birth of this era we
are now nin. But we arent just here we are starting
to dip our toes in a new world called the Internet
of Things (IoT) or machine-tomachine computing. In
this world you can use your phone to talk to your
toaster over the cloud. It is real and it is here.

<

* Autonomic computing is a self-managing computing model named after, and patterned on, the human
bodys autonomic nervous system.

I dont need a hard disk in my computer if I can get

to the ser ver faster carr ying around these nonconnected computers is byzantine by comparison.
- Steve Jobs, Late Chairman and Co-Founder of Apple

CLOUD COMPUTING
AND YOU
So do you use the cloud? Most peoples first reaction
is no. But lets ask you another question Do you
make use of Internet Banking or do you use Dropbox?
Yes? Then you are in the cloud. So lets use Online
Banking as an example to explain the evolution
of cloud computing and the progression people
take to getting to making use of the cloud as a de
facto standard in how they prefer to transact with
service providers.
The Backdrop: Online Banking
When last did you venture to your bank or a branch?
Not very often do you. It is almost a forgotten era
where large buildings housed row upon row of
tellers, who would greet you by your first name and
stamp your little leather bound savings booklet with
every transaction. Today instead of reaching for your
keys to make a financial transaction, do you not
reach for your keyboard or your phone?

This behaviour is not dissimilar to what cloud

computing has done for general business. Would
you prefer to hop in your car to drive to a physical
environment to have a meeting, collect data or
information, fulfil a simple transaction or
would you prefer doing it from your desk.
The cloud gives people back time. It encourages
productivity, speed of deliver and customer service
efficiencies that have never before been seen. Online
banking stripped away the physical layers with which
people were comfortable and gave them options. It
wasnt an either or but through its progression and
its maturity people have become comfortable with it
and now to a large extent prefer it.
Take this a step further and put it into an enterprise
context and cloud computing is the delivery of
computing resources as a service. What resources?
Software,
platforms,
infrastructure,
storage,
databases, security and even backend resources
which are then all delivered via a model called asa-Service we will further break down the as-aService offerings we see today a little later.

Apple Music

Pinterest

With Apple Music I dont have to buy music anymore.

By simply paying a monthly subscription I have the
music I like streamed to my phone and iPad whenever
I want it and wherever I want it.

I get a view of all my hobbies and interests on Pinterest.

I can pin ideas and share ideas with a network of
likeminded people around the globe.

Dropbox

I love staying in touch with my family overseas, but

calls are just so expensive. However with Skype I can
see them, talk to them and even instant message
them all through the day.

I use Dropbox to store my files and I can access

them from my phone, tablet and my laptop.
Facebook
I make use of Facebook to stay in touch with friends and
family, update them on my day to day family activities
and nmore importantly to see what they are up to.
Flickr

Skype

Twitter
I use Twitter to stay up to date with news and
events that are of interest to me. I follow
#hashtags that are of importance to me.

I dont have albums anymore. I make use of Flickr and

sometimes even Facebook to store my digital photo
memories I take from my smartphone.

UBER

Google Maps

Waze

I dont need a GPS device anymore. My phone with

Google Maps helps me plan routes, avoid traffic and
even select public transport options in my area.

Traffic is a nightmare today. I wonder if I can proactively

tell my friends and family to take a different route by
using the crowd sourced power of Waze to know
exactly what the traffic situation is like.

Kindle
I love to read. Now with the cloud I download all of my
favourite books onto my Kindle and I no longer have
to lug large paperbacks around with me.
Office 365
I connect to my documents on SkyDrive and via
my phone, my tablet and my laptop. Its great to be
mobile and engaged no matter where I am.

I dont have a car, but today I make use of UBER to get

too and from work, and to the Gautrain.

XBOX
Playing games on my own used to be so dull but
now with XBOX Live I can chat to friends while
they play from the comfort of their couch, stream
new games and even join clans and groups from
all over the globe.

WHERE DOES THE CLOUD TOUCH YOU

AND WHERE DO YOU TOUCH THE CLOUD?
CLOUD

Cloud computing is often far more secure than traditional

computing, because companies like Google and Amazon
can attract and retain cyber-security personnel of a higher
quality than many governmental agencies.
- Vivek Kundra, former federal CIO of the United States

YOUR BUSINESS
AND CLOUD
COMPUTING
So lets summarise. Cloud computing is a delivery of
a host of services and technologies via the Internet.
It refers to things being hosted off site, in the cloud
or both, as opposed to things being only housed
locally or onsite. It doesnt require bricks and mortar
but rather a collection of technology end points or
devices that come together to deliver services to
your teams, your customers or consumers.
The beauty of the cloud is that it provides options
there is no this or that there is always the option of
both or many.
The opportunity
With the cloud businesses can transform
operations, cut costs and increase efficiencies and
productivity. How?
Making use of the cloud to access software as
opposed to installing suites on each device. This
will help you alleviate the pressures of managing
licensing requirements, streamline costs and free
up valuable IT resources.

For storage where you can now put your data in

a secure environment in the cloud and then offer
remote access to all work related data.
Mobility, to help create a mobile environment
(the mobile cloud) that enables your employees
to engage and interact with your business
anywhere and on any device. As well as a means
to let your customers engage with nyour services
or products within a mobile environment.
What does the cloud do for IT and you?
Creates efficiencies within the IT department
by leveraging offsite resources and minimising
the need for additional internal staff to support
onsite systems
Allows IT to roll out applications and systems
more efficiently, provisioning solutions on the fly
Makes use of offsite teams to suppor t
applications such as email, productivity suites
and even business systems
Customised platforms can now afford businesses
the ability to roll out mobility solutions for field
workers and field sales teams
Offers a single view of IT administrative tasks
Reduces the load on your infrastructure and
conversely the load on your IT teams
Standardisation of business systems, solutions
and user profiles

HOW DO I DEPLOY
TO THE CLOUD?

Does my service provider have the right security

policies in place?

Cloud deployment refers to the enablement of SaaS

(software as a service), PaaS (platform as a service) or
IaaS (infrastructure as a service) solutions that may be
accessed on demand by your business.

Can my staff and customers benefit from the

cloud?

The beauty of the cloud is that you can cherry pick

what you want to live in the cloud and dictate what
you put there at any given point.

Do I have the skills to migrate the cloud?

Where you need to identify a couple of factors:

What is my organisational appetite for the cloud?
Do I really need my own cloud?

What do I need to keep internal and what can I

move quickly to the cloud?

Will the cloud save me money in the short and

long term?

Do I have the right partners and vendors in place

to help me get to the cloud?
Are local cloud providers ready?

SHOULD THE CLOUD

FORM PART OF YOUR
BUSINESS STRATEGY?
By Leane Hannigan, Cloud Solutions Director at
WestconGroup Southern Africa

When we looked at launching a cloud

programme for our reseller partners in
2014 we realised that there are large
gaps in the industry with regards to
what the cloud really is, what it can do
for business, as well as the existence
of a large disconnect between the
perceived and real values the cloud
can bring to business.
Ive probably said it more times than
I should have over the last two years,
but cloud computing is not going
anywhere, so its about time we
and you get comfortable with this
massively transformative technology.
According to Gartner, The use of
cloud computing is growing, and
by 2016 this growth will increase to
become the bulk of new IT spend.
2016 will be a defining year for cloud
as private cloud begins to give way to
hybrid cloud, and nearly half of large
enterprises will have hybrid cloud
deployments by the end of 2017.
Why now? IT is sitting at a precipice.
We have two camps of businesses.
Those that have made massive
infrastructure investments and who
are now at a point where they need
to decide whether or not they
should rip and replace or shift to the
cloud. The other camps are the new

businesses, organisations that are

in a unique position where they can
leapfrog straight into the cloud. Many
of these are termed born in the cloud
companies.

have hybrid cloud deployments by the

end of 2017. These findings are consistent
with analyst firm IDCs predictions that
spending on cloud software will exceed
$112.8 billion by 2019.

While Gartners predictions for this

year are seemingly optimistic the
trend cited by infoworld.com, is that
companies will start migrating large
scale applications into the cloud as
well as build new digital and mobile
first applications. The natural home of
these is the cloud.

In South Africa, I still believe that there

are a large number of businesses that
do not fully understand the benefits
available to them from adopting cloud.
Our own findings from the surveys
conducted at out Cloud Acceleration
Programme (CAP) officially launched
last year, highlighted that many of our
resellers still have a massive thirst for
knowledge around cloud. And I dont
just mean what it is, or how it works;
what they want to know is what cloud
can do for them.

So what cloud should you select?

There are three popular models. The
private cloud which you own and you
host on premises. The public cloud,
where you rent or hire space from a
public cloud provider - think Microsoft,
Amazon or even Dropbox. And
then what is proving to be the most
successful and popular model, the
hybrid cloud, where you marry your
private cloud with a public cloud and
ensure you have workload mobility
between these two environments.
The real benefit of the hybrid cloud
is that it delivers on the cost savings
promise of the cloud as well as the
scalability and flexibility that IT shops
crave. In fact, again according to
Gartner, half of large enterprises will

As an industry, and in our position

as a distributor of IT products and
services we believe that it is our
role to help customers unravel the
spaghetti messaging the industry has
made around the cloud, and clarify
to business, the true value of cloud
computing.
For more information on WestconComstors CAP programme as well
as a full view of its cloud products
and services contact
Thiani
Naicker on +27 11 848 9119 or
thiani.naicker@westcon.com.

WHICH CLOUD WILL

WORK FOR YOU?
Public Cloud vs. Private Cloud
If we take a look at the definitions previously
provided private cloud implies it is your cloud, your
systems and you dictate how people engage with
these, whereas public suggests it is anothers systems
on which you host your solutions and access them
entirely via the Internet.
Both have their benefits and both have their
disadvantages.
Accessibility
Public clouds allow you to replicate data to many
applications with a single login through the Internet.
It is ideal for multi-branch organisations that have
offices around the globe. Limitations creep in when
there is bandwidth constraints.
Security
Public clouds are publically accessible which does
mean that customers who have client sensitive data
they need to store in the cloud are today a little
reticent to put this all in the cloud. While there are
security solutions that firewall your data its a risk
profile that many are still navigating.
Here the private cloud comes into play, especially
for financial services companies and even
telecommunications organisations that want to
safeguard their customer data. Businesses elect the
private cloud over the public cloud as a means to get
around potential security concerns.

Selecting either a Public or Private Cloud

The reality is that the public cloud is much easier to
deploy. You purchase the service and you roll it out
amongst your users, immediately reducing the need
to adjust your current infrastructure investments in
order to scale into the cloud. With it you pay for
what you use. It is very attractive to small to medium
businesses who want to move away from needing IT
resources to support them.
Conversely the private clouds dedicated hardware
and bandwidth resources make it an attractive option
for many large enterprises. Yes it provides resources
on demand, but it also preserves your current
infrastructure investment as well as enables you to
dictate your security policies, offers dependable
availability and a high level of control.
The new darling The Hybrid Cloud
Both private and public clouds can be advantageous
to your business so why chose? You dont have to.
With the hybrid cloud you can make use of the best
of both worlds, retain control, dictate security and
outsource and insource as and when you need to.
Remember a hybrid cloud is an infrastructure that
includes links between one cloud managed by you
(private cloud) and at least one third party cloud
(public cloud). In the hybrid cloud your clouds do
not have to meet, but instead offer different services
to different parts of your organisation based on your
companys appetite for both.
It is scalable, flexible and manageable it remains in
your control.

PRODUCTS IN THE
CLOUD
Today there are so many cloud products that you
may feel a little out of your depth when selecting
what suits your business. Again, do not follow and
either or approach when you dont need to. The
cloud enables you to pay for what you use, so now
you are afforded variety in the choices you take and
the choices you make.
What is this aasthing?
So we promised you a view of the as-a-Service
offerings that the cloud purports. Here are a few
that may or may not be relevant to your business.
However will enable you to understand the propeller
heads better next time you engage.
SaaS - Office 365 is the combination of familiar
Microsoft Office collaboration and productivity
tools that are today delivered through the cloud.
With Office 365 your people can take advantage
of anywhere access to email, web conferencing,
documents, and calendars. The suite comes
complete with business-class security built into
its core and is today supported and backed by
Microsoft. It is perfect for all businesses, whether
you are a small business or multinational enterprise,
and offers customisable plans to fit your businesses
unique needs.
SaaS - Adobe Document Cloud provides a modern
and efficient way in which to engage with your
documents in the cloud. With its incorporation of
Adobe Acrobat DC, you can now leverage e-signing
capabilities. In addition it offers and integrated set
of services that use a consistent online profile and
personal document hub. In short it lets you create,
review, approve, sign and track documents whether
on a desktop or mobile device. It also integrates with
systems of record such as CRM, HCM, CLM, and CMS.
SaaS - The Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS)
is a comprehensive cloud solution made up of
three components. Designed to address the urgent
need for solutions that help organizations and their
employees remain flexible and productive, the EMS
also ensures that corporate data is secure. The EMS
enables your organisation to manage your IT, Bring
Your Own Device (BYOD) and Software as a Service
(SaaS) in a cost effective method.
SaaS - SkyKick has launched a tool focused on
helping large businesses to Microsofts (MSFT) Office
365 softwareas-a-service (SaaS) offering. SkyKick

Enterprise Migration Suite was designed to enable IT

solutions providers to shift their larger customers to
Office 365, making it simpler to move organisations
with between 250 and 10,000 users to the cloud
quickly and cost-effectively.
SaaS - Symantec Protection Network, a software
as a service (SaaS) platform designed to deliver
easy-touse security and availability offerings to
small and midsized businesses at a price they
can afford. The first SaaS offering from Symantec,
Symantec Protection Network Online Backup
Service enables cost-effective, reliable backup
and restoration of business-critical data from the
convenience of a web browser.
DaaS New Citrix solutions deliver applicationcentric cloud services-itrix cloud services solutions
that enable organisations to take advantage of the
best security, performance and reliability whether
workloads run in the datacentre or in an external
cloud. No matter whether the apps and data live
on-premises or off-premises, users get the same
experience. Citrix XenApp allow enterprises to take
advantage of hybrid clouds, provisioning desktops
and apps to on-premises datacentres, Amazon Web
Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and other public
and private clouds.
IaaS - Oracle Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
StrategyOracle Cloud Infrastructure as a Service
(IaaS) offers a set of core infrastructure capabilities like
elastic compute and storage to provide customers
the ability to run any workload in the cloud. The
services are great for developers and infrastructure
services and include: Compute Service to leverage
elastic compute capacity to address growing
business needs; Storage Service to provide a secure,
scalable, reliable and simple storage solution to meet
all of your enterprise needs; as well as Messaging
Service to leverage dynamic messaging capabilities
for workflow agility.
PaaS - Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform
and infrastructure, created by Microsoft, for building,
deploying and managing applications and services
through a global network of Microsoft-managed
and Microsoft partner nhosted datacentres. It
provides both PaaS and IaaS services and supports
many different programming languages, tools and
frameworks, including both Microsoft-specific and
third-party software and systems. (Source: Wikipedia)

MYTHBUSTERS
THE TRUTH
OF CLOUD
COMPUTING
With anything that is new and that is misunderstood
come a number of myths and the cloud is no
exception. Cloud computing is itself shrouded in
myths and misperceptions the very things that are
slowing its adoption and impeding innovation in the
industry. So here are a few myths that we would like
to bust on your behalf.
Myth 1: My data is not secure with the cloud...
Some clouds are not and its important to check with
the cloud provider that you are engaging with. But
as a general rule anyone who is putting together
a cloud based datacentre is ensuring they have
the security solutions in place to ensure your data
is encrypted and secure. Companies make use of
a defence-in-depth approach to provide physical,
logical, and data layers of security features and
operational best practices.
Myth 2: I am not allowed to store my data outside
the borders of South Africa...
Thanks to our friends at Microsoft for this answer.
There is no law in South Africa that prohibits you
from storing your data outside the borders of South
Africa. The PoPI Act refers to the Protection of
Personal Information and, as citizens of South Africa,
how we need to treat information. Financial data and
records can be stored outside South Africa provided
you meet the requirements of SARS.

Myth 3: I need to be connected to the Internet

all the time...
Not always and not with all applications. Lets look
at Office 365 as an example here. You can work on
your documents, emails and content in an offline
state and when you are ready you can connect to
the Internet and synchronise your data and emails.
You do not have to be connected to be productive.
This is the same for applications such as Amazon,
Google Drive and even Dropbox.
Myth 4: There is not enough bandwidth in
South Africa...
We hear this one all the time. Yes some companies
have small lines, but its not because the bandwidth
isnt available it is more a case that they arent on
the right package, or dont know what is available
to them. Whats more, there has been significant
investment into fibre bandwidth solutions, giving
South Africa access to the Internet and improved
bandwidth speed. This has driven lower pricing.
Currently cost-effective fibre communication to your
office is common and soon you will see fibre in your
home.
Myth 5: Its cheaper to do IT myself...
No IT services arent traditionally cheap, but the
cloud has changed that. Remember as an SME
customer as an example there are a number of costs
to factor in, for example the costs of your server and
licensing at the time of deployment, versus over a
three-year period. What was the true cost of running
this yourself? For instance if email is down how much
did this cost your organisation? Have you considered
these factors when evaluating how much cheaper
a solution such as Office 365 is for your business.
The cloud takes the pain out of maintaining, running,
refreshing and even hosting your IT solutions
ultimately making the costs much cheaper.

Flying by the seat of the pants must have been a

great experience for the magnificent men in the flying
machines of days gone by, but no one would think of
taking that risk with the lives of 500 passengers on a
modern aircraft. The business managers of a modern
enterprise should not have to take that risk either. We
must develop standard cloud metrics and ROI models,
so that they can have instruments to measure success.
- Dr. Chris Harding, Director for Interoperability and SOA at The
Open Group

HOW DISTRIBUTION FITS INTO THE PICTURE

You

Your IT
Professional

WESTCON GROUPS
APPROACH TO
CLOUD
So there you have it. The cloud is an nebulous
technology that provides you the ability to
scale, to encourage flexibility, take advantage of
manageability and it gives you the power to change
your IT environment into what you need it to be.

Distribution

Vendor

About Westcon Group

Westcon Group, Inc. is a value added distributor of
categoryleading unified communications, network
infrastructure, data centre, cloud computing and
security solutions with a global network of specialty
resellers and IT professionals. The Westcon Groups
teams are located in 70+ countries around the
globe, create unique programmes and provide
exceptional support to accelerate the business of
its global partners.
Strong relationships enable partners to receive
support tailored to their needs. From global logistics
and flexible customised financing solutions to presales, technical, our customers and engineering
assistance, we work with partners to respond with
agility and speed to changing market conditions
so they can achieve the fastest time to revenue.
Westcon Groups portfolio of market-leading
vendors assist us to help our clients reach their
business goals such as:
Global company, headquartered in Tarrytown,
NY, USA
Over US$5 billion in revenues
Founded in 1985
Present in 70 countries, across 6 continents
With over 110 offices, we ship to more than
100 countries
25+ logistics/staging facilities
Backed by 3,000+ associates
20,000+ transacting customers globally

WESTCON GROUP
CLOUD SOLUTIONS
At Westcon Group we are working with a host of
cloud vendors and cloud partners to help you
understand the cloud as well as internalise it in your
own business. It is not our goal to develop a cloud
and sell you cloud real estate instead we want
to be you and your IT professionals cloud vending
machine. Enabling you to select solutions best suited
to your business, providing you with the training and
migration tools you need to make the cloud a reality.
How can we help?
Westcon Group Cloud Solutions works with our
customers, (ISUs, ISPs, Systems Integrators and
Cloud Aggregators Resellers list).
Partnering with your IT professional of choice we can:
Identify cloud opportunities in your business
through better leveraging IT
Identify which cloud vendors are best suited to
your business needs
Build cloud models, private, public or hybrid,
that will suit your needs and your budget
Assist in creating a cloud roadmap that meets
your requirements
Help you bring cloud skills and competencies
into your business at a pace and preferred
financial model that meets your needs
We are able to help you mobilise business through
your IT professional, to be a cloud business by
offering you access to the hardware, software,
services, support and even third party financing
you need to transform into a business of tomorrow
delivering services today through an IT professional
of your choice.
If you do not have an IT professional business to
support your nbusiness, please contact us on:
thepromise@westcon.com
Westcon Customers / Resellers (IT professional
companies) As a distributor of IT products, today our

customers are made up of a collection of resellers

and partners who work with you the end user
customers to build and develop technology solutions
to meet todays demanding business challenges.
These resellers form a community of about 3500
companies within the Southern African region and
are a collection of small to medium sized businesses
right through to large-scale IT enterprises that meet
the needs of the most challenging IT requirements.
What is Westcons differentiator?
We provide our customers with the most comprehensive
set of cloud offerings and software solutions, from a
vendor, partner and services perspective.
Today we are the most recognised distributor for
cloud services and software solutions locally
There is simply no other distributor in the region
that has the vendor base in place we have or
who is as advanced as we are with solution
bundles that can support hybrid cloud solutions
We can provide our partners and their
customers access to hardware and software as
well as services
Everything in the cloud needs a license and
we can provide you access to these through a
host of cloud and Service Provider / Hosting
licensing models
Why Resellers Partner With Us
As a strong strategic partner, we offer superior
account management backed by a dedicated team
of responsive and reliable experts who are totally
focused on our partners business. We offer the
financial strength and breadth of global capabilities
to manage their changing needs.
Why Vendors Partner With Us
As a value-added distributor, we are focused on creating
the programmes and support that accelerate the
business of our partners. We support our global reseller
base with senior level, experienced management teams
that are located in region and have the legal and
commercial relationships to efficiently address global
markets. We are uniquely qualified to deliver and
integrate complex unified communications, security,
and network infrastructure technologies.

GLOSSARY OF IAAS
Backup as a Service (BaaS)
BaaS is a subcategory of Storage as a Service (SaaS)
and is pretty much explained in the name; its a service
that provides users with a system for the backup (often
remote), storage and recovery of computer files. You
can think of it as virtual backup-stock.
Cloud as a Service (CaaS)
CaaS can be defined as any resource that is
provided over the Internet but the most common
cloud services include Software as a Service (SaaS),
Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a
Service (IaaS).
Communications as a Service (CaaS)
CaaS is an outsourced communications solutions that
can be leased from a single vendor and enables the
consumer to utilise Enterpriselevel VoIP, VPNs, PBX and
Unified Communications without actually purchasing,
hosting or managing the infrastructure. It saves the
enterprise/consumer money and manpower.
Content as a Service (CaaS)
This service deals with content that can be delivered
as a web service and offers hosted content storage.
Data as a Service (DaaS) nThink of DaaS as the cousin
of Software as a Service. DaaS means that data can
be provided on demand to the user no matter where
they are or the separation of provider and consumer.
Database as a Service (DBaaS) DBaaS is a cloudbased approach to the storage and management
of structured data. As a cloud-based service it gives
users flexible, scalable, on-demand performance
thats aimed at creating selfservice nand easy
management, particularly in terms of provisioning a
business own environment.
Data Management as a Service (DMaaS)
Data is one of a businesss most valuable assets, but if it
is not managed right, is can also cause a business to fail.
DMaaS is when a company outsources the validation,
storage, protection and processing of data to another
party. This party ensures the safety, accessibility,
reliability and timeliness of data for data users.
Data Mining as a Service (DMaaS)
This is the same as Data Warehousing as a Service.
Data Warehousing as a Service (DWaaS) Data
warehousing is the electronic storage of a large
amount of information by a business. Therefore
DWaaS is when a business entrusts the warehousing
of their data to another party. Storage of company

data must be secure, reliable, easy to retrieve and

easy to manage. As the amount of data companys
deal with continues to increase this cloud-based
data analytics solution takes a large weight off the
shoulders of businesses.
Development as a Service (DaaS)
Here your developers can make use of cloud
based IDE, which will then allow them to develop
applications by just making use of a browser.
Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
A cloud service is which the back-end of a virtual
desktop infrastructure (VDI) is hosted by a cloud
service provider. This is service is usually purchased
on a subscription basis and the service provider
manages the back-end responsibilities of data
storage, backup, security and upgrades.
Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)
Cloud-based disaster recovery as a service is the
replication and hosting of physical or virtual servers
by a third party to provide failover in the event of a
man-made or natural disaster.
Hardware as a Service (HaaS)
A service provision model for hardware that is
defined differently in managed services and grid
computing contexts. In managed services, HaaS is
similar to licensing and in grid computing its a payasyou-go model.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
A form of cloud computing that provides virtualised
computing resources over the Internet. IaaS is one
of the three main categories of cloud computing
services, alongside Software as a Service and Platform
as a Service. In this model, a third-party provider
hosts hardware, software, servers, storage and other
infrastructure components on behalf of its users.
Integration as a Service (IaaS)
Making use of the cloud to develop or make use of
tools that offer integration between your business
applications. You can leverage this to integrate backend
systems, sources, files and operational napplications.
The IaaS model enables integration across the cloud,
making it possible to share data between systems as
well as third party vendors in real-time.
Monitoring as a Service (MaaS)
MaaS handles the deployment of monitoring
functionalities for various services and applications
within the cloud, offloading a large majority of costs

by having it run as a service and opposed to an inhouse tool. The most common application for MaaS
is online state monitoring, which tracks certain states
of applications, networks, systems, instances or any
application deployable within the cloud.

involves applications such as anti-virus software

delivered over the Internet but SaaS can also refer
to security management provided in-house by an
external organisation.

Network as a Service (NaaS)

Basically, SaaS is any software offered remotely as

a service. SaaS is the ability for a consumer to use
on demand software that is provided by the service
provider via a thin client device, for example, a web
browser over the Internet.

NaaS is a business model for delivering network

services over the Internet on a pay-per-use or
subscription basis. What it means is that the network
becomes a utility thats paid for and all complexities
are hidden from view. NaaS saves businesses money
on network hardware and the staff it takes to manage
a network in-house, because now the network is a
managed service within the cloud.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Hosted software that serves as a platform for
building SaaS offerings. It provides the capability for
consumers to have applications deployed without
the burden and cost of buying and managing
hardware and software.
Security as a Service (SaaS)
SaaS is a business model in which the management
of security is outsourced to a third party. It usually

GENERIC CLOUD
COMPUTING
AND GENERAL
COMPUTING TERMS
Aggregator - A cloud aggregator is typically a
cloud broker that will then package and integrate
multiple cloud computing services into one or more
services of your choosing.
Artificial Intelligence The development and creation
of computer systems that is able to perform tasks that
usually require human intelligence/intervention.
Autonomic Computing - Autonomic computing is
a self-managing computing model named after, and
patterned on, the human bodys autonomic nervous
system. An autonomic computing system would
control the functioning of computer applications and
systems without input from the user, in the same way

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Storage as a Service (SaaS)

SaaS is when third party providers rent space on
their storage to end users that lack the budget or
technical personnel to implement and maintain their
own storage infrastructure.
XaaS (Anything as a Service)
XaaS refers to the delivery of IT as a Service through
hybrid cloud ncomputing and refers to either one
or a combination of: Software as a Service (SaaS),
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a
Service (PaaS), Communications as a Service (CaaS)
or Monitoring as a Service (MaaS).

that the autonomic nervous system regulates body

systems without conscious input from the individual.
The goal of autonomic computing is to create
systems that run themselves, capable of high-level
functioning while keeping the systems complexity
invisible to the user.
BYOD - BYOD is short for bring your own device.
In the consumerisation of IT, BYOD, is a phrase that
has become widely adopted to refer to employees
who bring their own computing devices such as
smartphones, laptops and tablets to the workplace for
use and connectivity on the secure corporate network.
Channel - The system of intermediaries between
the producers, suppliers, consumers, etcetera, for
the movement of a good or service.
Cirrus - Lacy or wispy clouds that form at high
altitudes, generally before a change in the weather.
Cloud Computing - The practice of using a network
of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store,
manage, and process data, rather than a local server
or a personal computer.

Crowdsourcing - The practice of obtaining needed

services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions
from a large group of people and especially from
the online community rather than from traditional
employees or suppliers
Cumulus - Large, white, puffy clouds that generally
appear during fair weather, although they also form
thunderheads on hot days. Some carry rain.
Datacentre - A data centre (sometimes spelled
datacentre) is a centralised repository, either physical
or virtual, for the storage, management, and
dissemination of data and information organised
around a particular body of knowledge or pertaining
to a particular business.
Distributor - A distributor is an intermediary entity
between a the producer of a product and another
entity in the distribution channel or supply chain,
such as a retailer, a value-added reseller (VAR) or a
system integrator (SI). The distributor performs some
of the same functions that a wholesaler does but
generally takes a more active role.
Hybrid Cloud - Hybrid cloud is a cloud computing
environment which uses a mix of on-premises, private
cloud and public cloud nservices with orchestration
between the two platforms.
Infrastructure - IT infrastructure refers to the
composite hardware, software, network resources
and services required for the existence, operation
and management of an enterprise IT environment. It
allows an organisation to deliver IT solutions and
services to its employees, partners and/or customers
and is usually internal to an organisation and
deployed within owned facilities.
Internet of Things - The Internet of Things (IoT)
refers to the evergrowing nnetwork of physical
objects that feature an IP address for Internet
connectivity, and the communication that occurs
between these objects and other Internet-enabled
devices and systems. It is also known as machine-tomachine computing.
ISP - An ISP (Internet service provider) is a company
that provides individuals and other companies access
to the Internet and other related services such as
Web site building and virtual hosting. ISU Internet
Services Unit. Refer to ISP.
IT - Information technology (IT) is the use of any
computers, storage, networking and other physical
devices, infrastructure and processes to create,

process, store, secure and exchange all forms of

electronic data.
Private Cloud - Private cloud is the phrase used
to describe a cloud computing platform that is
implemented within the corporate firewall, under the
control of the IT department.
Public Cloud - A form of cloud computing in which
a company relies on a third-party cloud service
provider for services such as servers, data storage
and applications, which are delivered to the company
through the Internet.
Reseller - In information technology, a reseller, also
sometimes known as a value-added reseller (VAR),
is a company that typically buys products such as
computers in bulk from a manufacturer / distributor
and then adds value to the original equipment
by including specific software applications or other
components.
Service Provider - A service provider (SP) is a
company that provides organisations with consulting,
legal, real estate, education, communications,
storage, processing, and many other services. In this
case the provision of IT, Internet or cloud services.
Stratus - Low clouds that stretch over large portions
of sky, creating overcast conditions.
Vendor - A vendor, also known as a supplier or a
hardware / software supplier and is a company that
manufactures and then sells goods or services to
someone else in the economic production chain. In
the channel, a reseller will secure vendor products
from their distributor.
Sources:
Techtarget.com
Whatis.Techtarget.com
Webopedia.com
Dictionary.reference.com
Merriam-webster.com
Techopedia.com
Investopedia.com
Wikipedia.com

NOTES