Brian Larkin, operations director, Digital Planet
Brian Larkin of Digital Planet believes that, despite all the hype about cloud computing, the simplest way to think about it is as an alternative way of delivering IT that must first pass the TCO (total cost of ownership) test.
“The key is cost reduction,” he explains. Effectively there are two ways of consuming IT via the cloud: public cloud and private cloud.
“Private cloud in our definition is an environment in a data centre with dedicated infrastructure that belongs to a business; it’s a non-multi-tenancy environment. What that means is your networks and your servers are dedicated, that there’s no one else’s data sitting in those boxes.
“In a public cloud you have a multi-tenancy environment where all the infrastructure is shared.”
