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Planning for Uncertainty: Are You Ready for the Next “Big One”?

Posted on by Bluewave

Running an organization would sure be a lot easier if we could anticipate everything that will happen in the future. The COVID-19 pandemic and its ensuing economic and business disruptions have been a profound reminder that, in addition to the everyday uncertainties organizations face (key staff quitting suddenly, statistically improbable systems failures, etc.), there are periodic major disruptions that no one can see coming—future-defining unpredictable events. Let’s explore how Bluewave can help you by planning for uncertainty.

How can companies prepare for something like Covid when no one knows when it’s coming or what it will look like? For IT leaders, the key is planning for uncertainty by building a resilient organization and technology stack. Let’s focus on communications and telecom preparedness. As we know from the shift to work-from-home, telecom and collaboration solutions were the key to workforce continuity during Covid. In adapting to Covid, organizations discovered three primary reasons why it’s hard to be prepared for major shifts:

  1. IT organizations often don’t have a holistic view or blueprint of their technology.
  2. IT organizations are not constantly optimizing their solutions—meeting objectives, reviewing vendor agreements, and monitoring for better alternatives.
  3. IT organizations are support-focused or project-focused. If telecom and communications services are running OK, optimization for effectiveness and costs is not a priority when there are limited or non-dedicated resources.

This is a chronic condition throughout the industry that Bluewave is helping to fix. Our Technology Lifecycle Management process is designed to give companies the visibility, agility, and flexibility they need to better weather routine and catastrophic unknowns.

Key components of preparedness:

1. Gain Visibility

  • Any type of planning starts with an in-depth understanding of current projects and initiatives as well as having clear insights into what assets and services are in place today.
  • Analyze all vendor contracts and ensure that terms, conditions, and optional cancellations scenarios are clearly understood (specifically ETF fees, auto renewal classes, or renewal for discount opportunities).

How Bluewave Can Help: The first step in our Lifecycle Management process is to help clients obtain this deep understanding not only of their current initiatives, assets, and services, but also of their vendor contracts. Understanding terms, conditions, and optional cancellations scenarios (specifically ETF fees, auto renewal clauses, or renewal for discount opportunities) is critical to building uncertainty-weathering resilience. We do this through our proven Technology Assessment process, which includes a guaranteed 2x return on investment, making it an easy first step for IT leaders to take.

2. Align Priorities

  • Ensure that everything that is being worked on within IT aligns to a macro business goal. Another pitfall of being engaged in daily firefighting is that IT initiatives, assets, and services can gradually drift away from business goals unless they are diligently and proactively aligned.
  • Clearly describe how a project’s efforts are going to directly deliver macro business goals.
  • Consider realigning resources so IT’s time and effort are relevant to the broader organizational priorities. Always quantify the risk to the business’s macro priorities if a specific project is scaled down, paused, or outright sunset.

How Bluewave Can Help: Bluewave’s Solutions Architecture and Transformation team can help quantify ROIs and align the IT projects with your business objectives.

3. Drive Agility

  • Identify opportunities where scalable, outcome-based services (such as XCaaS, managed cloud, managed security services, etc.) can reduce operational risk and costs in the event of headcount reduction or in the event of growth outpacing internal support.
  • Consolidate vendor relationships to drive deeper partnership beyond commercial contracts. It’s important to be working with vendors you know and trust. When dealing with partner-status vendors, creative solutions and long-range mutual support (hallmarks of resilience) are much more likely.

How Bluewave Can Help: Again, our Technology Assessment can help decrease wasted spend and free up existing budget allocation so that mid-cycle reductions can be absorbed without impacting projects.

Let’s get started

If you’re ready to start building better resilience to uncertain events, whether they’re of the big global variety or the mundane operational variety, Bluewave’s Telecom Assessment is a great place to start. Once we’ve taken a deep look into your current environment, the path toward resilience will start to look more certain. Let’s get started by planning for uncertainty in your tech stack.

Let’s Get Started

POTS Losing Out to Next-Generation Technologies

Posted on by Bluewave

Now is the time to assess the impact on your business

Very few technologies last a lifetime, let alone multiple generations. It’s time to say goodbye to good old copper telephone lines. The number of Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) lines has been in decline for years, from 122 million in 2010 to 41 million in 2019, while the rates have increased 36%. For over a century, POTS lines were the most common way people and businesses connected with each other through the phone system; they carried hours of conversation from offices to offices, homes to homes, across thousands of miles.

Until recently, POTS lines were protected by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) because they were considered “critical infrastructure” as the primary way people could contact emergency services such as the police and an ambulance. This designation ensured that carriers can’t just drop the old copper technology and force you onto newer services, and it required charging “fair rates.” All of that changed when, in 2019, the FCC issued an order mandating that all POTS lines in the U.S. be replaced by August 2, 2022.

Part of the 36-page order states:

“Given the sweeping changes in the communications marketplace since the passage of the 1996 Act, including the increasing migration of consumers of all sorts and sizes away from TDM technology, copper loops, and local telephone service toward newer, any-distance voice services over next-generation wireline and wireless networks and the wide range of competitors offering facilities-based voice service alongside over-the-top Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services, we find that the public interest is no longer served by maintaining these legacy regulatory obligations and their associated costs. Rather than a foothold for new entrants into the marketplace, they have become a vice, trapping incumbent LECs into preserving outdated technologies and services at the cost of a slower transition to next-generation networks and services that benefit American consumers and businesses.”

Why Now?

Reasons cited for the retirement include:

  • the need for customers to migrate to high-speed broadband due to high growth in those areas
  • the need to remove copper lines for maintenance and construction projects
  • a lack of demand for POTS as an increasing number of consumers and organizations voluntarily transition to next-generation devices and services
  • because wireless networks are highly available and can be used as a replacement for copper lines

Major carriers have sent a clear signal that they are moving toward shutting down POTS networks. Lumen filed to retire their copper in numerous states starting in September 2020. Verizon asked customers to sunset by April 2022. Other carriers have already transitioned thousands of customers from copper to fiber networks.

This creates a significant problem for businesses relying on POTS to provide analog dial tones for specific specialized devices and services such as fax machines, alarm systems, POS (point of sale) systems, and elevator lines. While many standard devices can be transitioned with relative ease to broadband data lines, not all devices designed for an analog system convert straightforwardly to a digital one.

Are you Ready to Make the Transition?

Faced with the reality of disappearing copper lines and rising monthly charges, what are the best options for transitioning your existing devices? Fortunately, the rapid expansion of IoT combined with advanced internet technology has brought forth practical solutions for salvaging your outdated POTS.

How? Well, an IoT device is nothing more than a purpose-built specialty device connected to the internet. You may have seen these as temperature sensors or thermostats, but in the world of POTs replacement, they can replace the physical wires bringing phone service into the building. These devices, provide your existing equipment, such as phones, alarms, or fax machines, with a connection to the phone system through the internet, rather through your existing copper POTS line.

As modern technology and IoT technology continue to evolve at a dizzying pace, adopting 4G LTE connectivity will also be an essential stepping-stone to the inevitable eventual upgrade to 5G. The more sluggish organizations adapt to current technology standards, the more they will risk falling exponentially behind their more innovative competitors.

Got Fax?

Do your business operations still rely on the ability to send faxes? If you are in an industry mandated to track and comply with various government regulations, such as the legal and healthcare fields, chances are you do. Or you may still be relying on fax technology to place orders with vendors or receive orders from your customers. Transitioning to 4G LTE or 5G provides a reliable alternative at a reasonable cost.

A service outage poses a significant problem and potentially hefty consequences for a business. The reliability of 4G LTE connectivity is ideal for critical business applications such as emergency alarms, point of sale systems, elevator lines, and entry gates. For added resiliency, implementing a failover internet service (switching to a duplicate or backup internet connection) can ensure business continuity during an outage.

Are you still using analog phone lines for certain locations or applications? Whether you’re using your current POTS for a basic desk phone or connecting into a more robust PBX, a cloud-based VoIP solution may be a better alternative than just replacing the POTS line with a wireless replacement. VoIP technology offers a great deal more functionality than legacy analog POTS, making it an excellent upgrade option for business telephones. Features like call recording, call forwarding, conference calling, voicemail routing, and customized caller ID are now readily available at a very reasonable cost. Sound quality is more reliable, and no additional setup is required for remote work.

Act Now

Bluewave can perform a telecom audit and create a solution that streamlines the transition of analog lines to modern data networks which typically results in immediate cost savings. We can help identify your copper lines, how you’re using them, suggest alternative telecom solutions and carriers, and manage the contract and implementation process for you. We’ll ensure you get the right replacement products that fit your business requirements.

Get in touch with Bluewave today to discuss the ideal solution for converting your outdated POTS with the best-fitting next-gen technologies.

Let’s Get Started

Sources:

4 Reasons Business Process Outsourcers (BPOs) Choose Bluewave for Technology Lifecycle Management

Posted on by Bluewave

Four Reasons BPOs choose Bluewave over traditional telecom brokers for business technology advisory services.

Recent BPO Trends

The U.S. BPO market is estimated to reach $69.2 billion in 2022 and constitutes the largest consumer of BPO services. Cloud computing, SaaS, and AI have changed BPO services for the better, leading to higher productivity and operational effectiveness. The technology and telecommunications industries offer substantial opportunities for BPOs – from cloud-based contact centers to redundant submarine networks to expense management. Let’s explore the reasons BPOs choose Bluewave.

Enterprises and SMBs are using cloud-based computing rather than opting to manage their own hardware, personnel, and data centers. This is creating opportunities for BPOs to provide superior and cost-efficient products, more secure and redundant networks, easier and faster implementations, and the agility to scale up and down as needed.

And with all of that opportunity and growth, many BPOs need a strategic advisor to thoughtfully advise them on their entire technology portfolio. Bluewave is responsible for advising clients across the technology lifecycle, from assessment to design to optimization, as well as helping enterprises achieve their long-term business outcomes.

Why Do BPOs Outsource Aspects of the Technology Lifecycle?

BPOs are the experts in outsourcing so they know exactly what needs to be farmed out and what to keep in-house. So why do they outsource parts of the technology lifecycle? Just like other successful businesses, they want a modern architecture for themselves and their clients to:

  • Be agile and flexible in their operations and network
  • Provide cost efficient products and processes
  • Build a robust and stable network with built-in redundancy and security
  • Go to market quickly with confidence
  • Focus on their core competencies and mission critical issues
  • Grow and optimize in the cloud for scalability and flexibility
  • Stop playing defense and overcome IT roadblocks
  • Stay informed of new technologies and latest trends

Why Do BPOs Choose Bluewave?

Working with Bluewave means working with a long-established, dedicated technology advisor with the industry expertise to deliver macro-level insights, achieve immediate cost savings, allow BPOs to reclaim time, and add lasting value to their technology and organization. So, why do BPOs choose Bluewave?

Speed to Market

Bluewave has the industry expertise to act as a force multiplier and fiduciary of their team to identify the solutions needed and help them understand why they need it. This will streamline the negotiations and contract process by 75% for quick speed to market. Since we have working relationships with the leading technology vendors and telecom carriers, we already have deep insights into the market and experience with previous implementation projects, significantly speeding up the process while providing a solid foundation for success.

Bluewave does the heavy lifting for clients – vetting networks, negotiating telecom contracts, services, and apps, coordinating with carriers and service providers, as well as project management of all design and implementations. Through rigorous and efficient processes, we are an extension of the BPO team to free up valuable resources so they can work on mission critical applications.

International Expertise

Near shore. Offshore. Redundancy. Low latency. Bluewave has a heavy concentration and knowledge of the Pacific Rim, Caribbean, Central & Latin America submarine cabling systems and in-country networks. We advise and architect the best diverse redundant networks plus exceptional cloud solutions for supporting international contact centers with voice, communications, and mobility. We also have strong competency in TDM and SIP voice services. Plus, we have strategic relationships with key international and domestic providers indigenous to the BPO vertical.

Our holistic knowledge of the challenges and pain points BPOs face, as well as the corresponding solutions and efficiencies, make Bluewave a value-added overlay in the BPO vertical. When you think about your traditional vendors and providers, they all touch one piece of your technology solutions, but Bluewave touches all aspects, from assessment to support, so there’s a cohesive strategy to save time, money, and frustrations.

Agile Products & Processes

BPOs must provide the highest level of service to their clients, which means eliminating all bottlenecks and areas of frustration in their own companies. Teams that don’t have the tools needed to do their jobs or deliver what’s needed won’t be able to deliver a top-notch customer experience and meet business outcomes. The unbiased experts at Bluewave educate on which providers offer services that align with the broader project goals and existing architecture without missing any of the minor details required.

We know the right questions and how to ask them to gain more clarity and insight from the options. Bluewave is an advocate, advisor, and consultant throughout the technology lifecycle process. Not a service provider, not a sales company, and not a brokerage – we are much more than that. Working with Bluewave will allow improved visibility into services to know exactly what is there and what the costs are.

Reduce Costs Substantially

By using Bluewave throughout the technology lifecycle, BPOs reduce overspending, see cost reductions and optimization, have accurate budgets and optimal returns on investment, as well as alleviate the risk of service disruptions. U.S. BPO companies are having to pay much higher wages than a few years ago. While wages are running rampant and recruiting is challenging, Bluewave can help BPOs keep other costs down so they can hire enough of the right people to support their clients.

Another budget challenge in technology and telecom services is billing. Bills are confusing and invoices are faulty. One transposed number and you’re over budget. Do teams have the time and staff to notice or identify billing errors? For over two decades, Bluewave has the hard-earned experience to help BPOs understand and analyze invoices, thereby highlighting billing errors and clarifying precisely what you’re paying for and why your business genuinely needs it. We have a Technology Expense Management (TEM) practice specializing in managing telecom expenses and bill pay for many clients.

Customer Quote

“Bluewave offers powerful tools and reliable support which any complex network requires to function smoothly. We have engaged them to manage the entire telecom and network procurement process which involves management of multiple global carriers. Their support team is outstanding and always helps escalate and prioritize resolution with carriers. A trusted partner for more than a decade; they have extensive industry knowledge and the ease with which they execute complex agreements never ceases to amaze me.”

iQor, BPO client testimonial

Let’s Get Started!

With the substantial growth in the BPO space and increasing demand for outsourcing, how will BPOs accomplish everything that needs to be done? By being faster, implementing flexible and more efficient technologies through cloud and AI, optimizing their expense management, and by hiring Bluewave to advise and architect the best solutions. While Bluewave has the capacity to act as a broker on your behalf, our capabilities and expertise go beyond what a traditional telecom broker can provide.

If you need help determining which approach fits your needs, let’s chat about how Bluewave can help. Ron Piemonte, VP of Sales for our BPO vertical, is here to help. Ron has been advising BPOs for 35 years and has strategic relationships with key international and domestic providers, as well as a holistic understanding of the BPO space and their technology dependencies.

Let’s Get Started

Source:

Holistic IT Management Is No Longer Optional

Posted on by Curt Allen

I recently joined Bluewave as a Strategic Advisor to help guide the firm’s corporate development strategy and execution. While I’ll be focused on business-level advising, it’s how Bluewave’s business model addresses the technical challenges of today’s IT environment that attracted me to the company and drives my confidence in its business future. Let’s talk about why holistic IT management is no longer optional.

I’ve spent 30 years in the IT and Communications space, including work as a master agent and sales leader for large firms. I’ve spent the past year-and-a-half consulting for vendors, distributors, agents, and the investment community in this space, affording me a view of the IT landscape that has convinced me Bluewave’s holistic approach is the way forward for technology buying and management. A lot has changed in my 30 years in the business. In this post, I’ll offer my perspective on the key changes I’ve seen recently, and how Bluewave is uniquely addressing them.

From Discrete to Integrated

Sourcing IT solutions for mid-size and enterprise firms used to be relatively straightforward. If a firm needed a particular technology like UCaaS or connectivity, they’d find a vendor to provide that technology, bolt it on, and go about their business. This process may have been straightforward, but that doesn’t mean it was optimized. The strategy for managing IT services technology after adoption often wasn’t clear. In general, providers were not expected to manage the entire lifecycle of their products and services.

These processes and assumptions worked just fine in an era when IT services and technologies tended to be discrete. However, there’s been a shift in IT technology that has outpaced the adoption and management processes supporting it. Today, there’s more interoperability between services, making it much more difficult to bolt-on and bolt-off individual solutions as needed without disrupting the entire environment. Without processes that holistically support the entire IT environment, firms will sacrifice agility at a moment when it’s most needed in order to stay competitive.

This Shift Has Happened Before

The shift to interoperability isn’t unique to IT, and we can look at examples of solution sets developed in other industries to understand how IT adoption and management must be supported today. In the automotive world, components for old cars were (literally and figuratively) bolt-on, bolt-off. If a distributor went bad, any mechanic could replace it with a new unit without affecting the car’s other systems. As cars became computerized, more work had to be done by a dealer who could address the interoperability of components. Finally, with exceptionally complex, computerized, systems-integrated electric cars that are subject to constant software updates and continuous improvement in technology, service is best handled by unified management of the car’s entire lifecycle, as manufacturers like Tesla do.

What was great about old cars was the provider agnosticism—a selection of parts that could be installed by any mechanic. What’s great about new electric cars is the unified lifecycle management, ensuring all systems work together flawlessly across the life of the vehicle. Modern IT systems present the challenges of both these scenarios: multiple providers, yet a need to manage constantly evolving interoperability across the lifecycles of individual systems and the changing needs of the entire stack.

We Can Have it Both Ways

This is a fantastic opportunity because it allows companies like Bluewave to offer customers the IT equivalent of the best of both worlds in our automotive analogy: A holistic, customer-centric method of evaluating, sourcing, managing, and supporting technology solutions that can include numerous providers across their lifecycles, guided by the management of the total stack.

This is a great narrative in theory, but the reason I’m particularly confident in Bluewave’s approach is that it isn’t built just on a great theory—it originates in what the market is asking for. In my experience in the agent channel, I’ve witnessed an evolution from selling point products to holistic IT management solutions. Even large enterprise firms that historically managed vendors with internal resources are looking more and more for the kind of external, vendor-agnostic support that Bluewave specializes in.

The theory is good, and it serves the needs the market is posing, but it’s Bluewave’s emphasis on lifecycle management that most attracted me to the company. Bluewave’s eight step process includes procurement, implementation, billing, change management and reporting, transcending the sourcing and contracting that most technology advisory firms limit themselves to. Buying point solutions either directly from providers or from agents that cannot deliver full life cycle management of a complete environment is not enough anymore.

Are You on Board?

It’s gratifying at this point in my career to have found a firm whose solution aligns with the direction I’ve witnessed market needs going recently. We want to affiliate with others that share our vision, are interested in the mid-market and enterprise customer, and want to be a part of a team that invests in its people, processes and technology.

If you operate at the enterprise scale, and in a direct-to-customer sales environment targeting mid-sized to enterprise customers, we’d love for you to join the conversation and hear your perspective on our vision.

Let’s Get Started

Why Technology Lifecycle Management Needs More Than a Telecom Broker

Posted on by Bluewave

A Technology Strategy Advisor is More Effective Than Going Direct to Telecom Carriers, or Even Using a Broker

Businesses looking to change, upgrade or modernize their telecommunication services typically have three options to source vendors and help with the project rollout and implementation:

  • Work directly with carriers or service providers
  • Coordinate with a telecom broker to source carriers
  • Partner with a technology lifecycle management advisor

The first option carries the most responsibility for the business, while the second and third options provide additional support.

Technology Lifecycle Management

The process of identifying, sourcing and ultimately rolling out services via one or more carriers or service providers is known as the technology lifecycle. This process can be deceivingly complex because, in most cases, managing information technology and telecommunications assets involves many points of contact, multiple install dates, delays, pages and pages of invoices, moves, additions and changes.

There are eight stages to Technology Lifecycle Management.

Each support option handles strategy differently:

STAGE DESCRIPTION DIRECT TO CARRIER BROKER FULL-SERVICE ADVISOR
IDENTIFICATION Partners with you in researching and identifying the IT environment your company needs and why you need it x x
SOURCING Developing and knowing which questions to ask providers to ensure they check all of your boxes x x
CONTRACTING Understanding how pricing models work so you know how to plan your budget x x
PROCUREMENT Providing the right information to your providers at the right time to avoid costly delays x
IMPLEMENTATION Ensuring a smooth transition between the sales team and implementation team x
BILLING Clarifying bills and highlighting potential errors so you know exactly what you’re paying for x
CHANGE MANAGEMENT Coordinating the transition during a migration of services so you aren’t paying for a new vendor and an old one at the same time x
REPORTING Translating confusing and potentially misleading reports to avoid future errors and unexpected payments down the road x

Based on support received throughout the lifecycle, the direct-to-carrier option requires the most effort on the part of the buyer, because you’ve chosen to work through each stage of the lifecycle on your own.

This method gives you full control over your services, but it also means there’s more room for error. Without a team of specialists to design a solution and manage the lifecycle all the way through, making changes to your telecom services can prove to be an extremely painful process.

Working with a Telecom Agent

Working with a telecom broker can alleviate some of this pain. A broker’s job is to source vendors and find the best solution for the client – normally defined as the lowest cost – and then essentially act as an intermediary during the sales process. Unfortunately, this results in telecom brokers assisting in the first three stages of lifecycle management (Identification, Sourcing, and Contracting) and then leaving the client to work through the other five stages alone.

In simpler telecom times, telecom broker services were sufficient because brokers specialized in having connections in the industry to sell basic voice and data services. In today’s converging and expanding telecom marketplace, telecom brokers work well for specific, well-defined situations.

Brokers with good connections are helpful in certain situations, but the telecom space has become more complex. What was once an industry with perhaps 20 carriers and vendors, has grown into a supply network of over 250 carriers/providers that is growing larger each day with emerging technologies. And all of the various technologies are becoming more interdependent and more connected with an organization’s IT infrastructure.

Unfortunately, this means greater potential for information to slip through the cracks, resulting in instability for your technology and telecom projects.

Need to make sense of telecom billing? Our Technology Assessments make it easy. Discover how. 

Case Study

One example of how a telecom broker relationship may not be enough comes directly from a Bluewave client’s Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) project. As the client began to seriously move into the decision-making phase of the project, they engaged Bluewave to do a final review of five different Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SDWAN) and SASE vendors that had been brought to the table.

Bluewave dug into the details and developed a new business strategy based upon the technical and business requirements that involved a complete scoping analysis, development of business plans and long-term goals, and recommended solutions and vendors.

This process took more time than a simple deal sourcing, but within three months the client had a complete understanding of their SASE solution, an agreed upon implementation plan—and the best pricing in the market.

A Better Way: Solution Selling

While Bluewave has the capacity to act as a broker on your behalf, our capabilities and expertise go beyond what a traditional broker can provide. Working with Bluewave means working with a long established, dedicated technology advisor with the industry expertise to deliver macro-level insights, achieve immediate cost savings, and add lasting value to your technology and organization.

Telecom brokers and carrier sales reps are very focused on selling. Bluewave takes pride in taking a step back from the situation and walking through each stage of the technology lifecycle, so nothing is overlooked providing the following benefits:

  • Outlining a technology roadmap
  • Managing the entire implementation project
  • Audit & optimizing services
  • Single point of contact for 100+ global vendors
  • Providing business process outsourcing & TEM
  • Managing real-time inventory & reporting
  • Expertise in carriers, integrations, & finance
  • Building a long-term technology partnership
  • Saving on Information Technology (IT) costs to fund other initiatives
  • Finding simple solutions to your technology troubles

Bluewave offers more than just a quick one-and-done business transaction. From asking the right questions and designing a service and solution, to negotiating the contract, to ordering and implementing services, we are with you every step of the way – and then with you after the go-live.

Bluewave provides not only expertise around vendors and their pricing, but a technical resource. We offer unmatched value compared to traditional brokerage services.

In the end, you will not only get the products and services you need at the best possible price – you will get the solution that is best for your business goals, delivered as expected.

Let’s Get Started

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Top 5 Use Cases for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Posted on by Bluewave

While the infrastructure and computing resources that run today’s businesses − such as storage, hardware, servers, and networking components − are critical, they are often underrated when it comes to being ranked as business priorities. That’s because, although the infrastructure is expected to perform predictably and reliably to support the business, it is not necessarily viewed as being a differentiator that delivers a competitive advantage. This belief, however, is far from the truth. In fact, today’s industry leaders are turning to infrastructure and infrastructure services to help them drive efficiencies and power digital transformation across their businesses.

One way they are doing this is by utilizing the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) model. IaaS is a cloud computing model where an organization outsources the fundamental infrastructure equipment used to support operations, i.e., storage, hardware, servers and networking components, and access to computing resources is delivered through a virtualized, cloud-based environment. This creates a joint delivery model where organizations own “up stack” from the virtual machine, but everything required to run that virtual machine is managed and maintained by someone else.

Reducing Costs and Improving Scalability with IaaS

According to Statista, the worldwide IaaS market will reach $122 billion by 2022. Not only that, the market is dominated by big players. Studies report 66% of the IaaS market is served by AWS (Amazon Web Services), Microsoft Azure, Alibaba and GCP (Google Cloud Platform). With IaaS, instead of purchasing hardware outright, users access virtualized computing resources over the internet, with the flexibility to scale up and down resources as circumstances and priorities change.

IaaS delivery options include the public cloud, private cloud or a hybrid cloud model. More companies are turning to a hybrid cloud approach to reach the optimal balance between cost and flexibility, in order to have the ability to move workloads between the private and public infrastructure as needed.

Benefits of IaaS are the reduction of hardware infrastructure costs coupled with greater flexibility and business agility, with pay-as-you-go pricing models that let the users pay only for the services they consume. Because businesses can spin up resources quickly, developers are also free to run temporary workloads, test new applications or prepare for seasonal spikes in traffic.

Ready to get more out of your technology while saving money? Bluewave can help.

Best Use Cases for IaaS

Also, a successful IaaS strategy can help companies focus on business growth and on meeting business-critical objectives. Let’s take a closer look at the best use cases for adopting IaaS:

Enabling add-on services

In addition to providing day-to-day computing resources, IaaS allows users to layer a wide-range of services on top of the infrastructure. That might include computing-as-a-service, disaster recovery-as-a-service, analytics or BI-as-a-service, and more.

Big data

Managing, storing, and analyzing big data like structured data (i.e., databases) and unstructured data (i.e., social media, images, web, emails, Internet of Things (IoT) sensors) requires a significant amount of processing power. IaaS is a perfect environment to manage big data because it can handle large workloads and can integrate with business intelligence tools. This delivers business insights that can help users predict trends, improve relationships with customers, and create new products and services.

Disaster recovery

With a robust and scalable infrastructure layer, organizations can consolidate their disparate disaster recovery systems into one virtualized environment for disaster recovery. This diversification of the backup systems gives businesses peace of mind knowing that their data is secure.

Testing and development

The computing and networking power behind IaaS make it a perfect place to run and manage testing and development cycles. With SLAs in place from providers and a high-level of security, enterprises can trust IaaS to run business-critical projects and get to market faster with a higher scalability of computing resources.

Networking services

Because the network continues to grow in complexity, many are turning to IaaS service providers to deliver networking-as-a-service support. This may be for a short-term big data project, or to support ongoing initiatives, freeing up internal IT staff for other priorities.

When deciding to move infrastructure to the cloud and evaluating service providers, look for those that match business requirements such as expertise, availability guarantees, price, and security certifications, for example. Those vendors that deliver 24/7 support and make it easy to move workloads to and from the cloud environment can help businesses improve efficiencies and differentiate themselves from the competition. Talk to Bluewave today about smart, flexible IaaS options that can be a game-changer for organizations big and small.

Other Popular Cloud-Based IT Services: SaaS and PaaS

While IaaS has its place in a cloud computing strategy, it is far from the only tool organizations have. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications are the most recognized cloud-based IT services category, and they include popular applications like Salesforce, MS Dynamics or Workday. A Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) example would be a development platform that is used to build and run applications in the cloud. This might be comprised of application servers or database management systems.

Each model moves the demarcation of control to a different point in the computing stack, so it’s important to map the right as-a-service approach to the right business needs and align them with the right IT operations strategy. If you need help determining which cloud approach fits your needs, engage Bluewave to speak with one of our Technology Advisors today.

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