‘Make using IT services as easy as using tap water’ is the beautiful vision people described when the concept of Cloud computing was put up for the first time. Essentially, it’s like using public utility services. People use tap-water, power and gas freely without knowing the details about how they are produced or transmitted. As long as Cloud computing technologies keep on advancing, is it possible that one day the scheduling and distribution of IT resources could be made so easy and flexible in the hand of IT management of a company that the managerial layer of physical equipment management is cut across and the IT services become available at any time anywhere? 

Next Step of Enterprise Clouds: ITaaS – One-stop Cloud Service 

To enterprises who want to retain all applications they currently use, there is a trouble called ‘Chubby is the idea, bony is the reality’. At present, uploading to a Cloud still is a long and complicated journey. The enterprise needs to sort out all architectures in current use, solve the compatibility of different applications, and redesign a system and network architecture for the Cloud. The IT people of the enterprise have to study the systems offered by different suppliers, compare the pros and cons, understand and identify new operating and O&M approaches, to be able to finally find the ways of using Cloud technologies to respond business needs. After a plan is worked out, during actual operation of the Cloud, they’d still need to make adjustments according to specific objectives to improve performance. 

That’s why the concept of ITaaS (IT as a Service) started rising in Europe and North America markets. According to a survey made by Gartner in 2017, enterprises in Europe are slashing IT hardware expenditure and substantially increasing their ITaaS expenditure. In fact, providing infrastructure service alone could only resolve a small part of enterprise problems. Providing integrated ITaaS and Host Cloud service will enable customers’ IT department to finally wave a goodbye to the time-consuming repetitive O&M work and focus on making business innovations;  

The SDS ITaaS One-stop Cloud is launched exactly in response of that trend. “What we wish to see is a customer feeling assured after leaving all troubles to us. Our ITaaS Cloud is able to ensure the security, controllability and other advantages coming with private Clouds, while relieving the burden on the IT people of our customers.” Said, Mr. Bao Kai, the Vice GM of Marketing & Sales Department of SDS.

In the entire life-span of a Cloud computing project, from consultancy and design in the preparation stage, through actual migration, to follow-up O&M and optimization stage, SDS will provide users with all-round solutions and management services in line with specific business needs to escort the customer through the journey to the Cloud, while protecting original investment and reducing IT cost for the customer.  

The benefit here to a customer is that it doesn’t have to go through all the troubles coming along with the private Cloud DIY process. Instead, all the difficulties around migration and management are handed over to SDS. With OpenStack-based and VMware-based hosted private Clouds and other options, SDS is able to help the IT departments in enterprises maintain sustainable operation.

Also, to meet the needs of multi-Cloud era, SDS has independently developed a Cloud management platform with which a user could put different Cloud services, private or public, under a unified management system and easily build a hybrid Cloud environment.

Mr. Bao Kai said, “A Cloud Management Platform could largely simplify IT O&M work. No matter what a user wants to do, add another core, or add a few more Ts to a hard drive, or broaden bandwidth, he could get it done by simply clicking a mouse button.”

With Great Preparation Comes Great Performance: Confidence Lies in SDS Professional Service

Established in ZhangJiang Science City in 1999, SDS grows up together with the growing needs in high-tech world for better communication support. As a veteran in enterprise information and communication technologies, SDS is committed to providing finance industry with dedicated financial datacenter operation services. Up to now, SDS has already received some of the highest standard authentications and qualification certificates in world data center and Cloud service industries. But most importantly, it already has 15 years of experience in providing high SAL services for world renowned business organizations operating in banking, futures, payment clearing and other financial industries. Among our long-term customers, many are financial institutions, transnational companies or World Top 500 companies. Relying on the professionalism shown in all SDS’s services, SDS is able to maintain a great customer loyalty and a great contract renewal rate. This is the confidence based on which SDS launched the ITaaS service products.

“Reliable service, quick response and short downtime have been what we outplay others in the industry. In about 2015, we started shifting to Cloud operation. Since then, our Cloud computing department has been able to maintain a 50% revenue growth rate. We wish to stick to the road of ‘With Great Preparation Comes Great Performance’ and offer our users with more matured and reliable services. It is a safe road toward Cloud transformation”, Mr. Bao Kai stressed.

In 2018, SDS opened the Building No.3 of its IDX LanGuang Data Center, adding another 10,000m² to its data center buildings. By now, SDS has an IDX LanGuang Data Center (with both the old and the new buildings included) in Zhangjiang Science City, an IDX JinQiao Data Center in Shanghai, and another IDX Data Center in Beijing. All of them are Tier 4 data centers built according to the highest datacenter construction standard in the world. Together, they are able to meet the user’s need to develop a 3-datacenters-in-2-city security structure. Additionally, users now can enjoy an IaaS platform at the highest security level without going through all the troubles of building one from scratch.

The New SDS IDX LanGuang Datacenter (Building No.3)

Mr. Bao Kai added, “Starting from data centers, the underlying layer of our organization, we invested a great number of specialists in our facilities. For example, where others post 20 O&M men to take care of 10,000m² floor area in a data center, we normally post 40. And this is not a simple increase of hands. The extra staff is here to provide our users with more inclusive and refined services, such as a customer service specialist handling the callings of a particular user.”

In the past, when an enterprise user encounters a problem, what it could do is no more than dialing 400 service hotline. Sometimes, in a worse case, it’d find suppliers blaming each other and there is no one from whom it could find help. Now, none of such things will happen.   

“Our customer service specialists will not stop at a stage of a service process. Instead, they’d take care of the entire life-span of the IT project. That is to say, a user could call the dedicated service specialist whenever a problem pops up. And the specialist will take it over from there. He will go through all links where such problems would probably happen and, then, quickly get to the root of the problem. With the help of such customer service specialists, our users will be relieved from the feeling of loss and helplessness forever”, said, Mr. Bao Kai.

Concluding Remarks 

Be it Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) or Software-as-a-service (SaaS), what enterprise users really expect is high SAL Cloud services. Cloud computing means more than a change of the ways IT resources are supplied. It requires innovative modes of system integration and operating and maintenance. This is exactly the meaning of the ITaaS One-stop Cloud Service that SDS offers. In an era when digital technologies develop by leaps and bounds, SDS shall keep on advancing side by side with our enterprise customers, helping them finish Cloud migration as soon as possible, and promoting business innovations worthy of this digital era.