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Call Accounting Looks at Hybrid Cloud

  By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor

The promise of benefits associated with operating in the cloud is strong enough to drive a number of companies to make a change. Generally focused on lower cost, increased functionality and streamlined operations, cloud strategies demonstrate the potential for large-scale operations on a small scale budget. In call accounting, it opens a number of doors.

For those who have yet to make the change, however, the concept of all or nothing leaves decision makers unable to take the necessary steps forward. Call accounting solutions provider, ISI (News - Alert) Telemanagement Solutions recently posted a blog on the topic, stressing that the move to cloud operations does not have to be an all or nothing proposition.

A common approach to migration is the belief that once a move is made to the cloud, the need for an on-premise solution goes away. While some may be able to move 100 percent to the cloud, the majority of businesses actually do very well in a hybrid environment where applications either reside in a private or public cloud, based on the needs of the organization. At the same time, these organizations still enjoy the flexibility and scalability of working in the cloud.

For many organizations, the right approach is the public cloud and the private cloud, creating a hybrid model that relies on an on-premises infrastructure to provide the supportive foundation. The public cloud is then used to add more performance features when needed. With the best of both worlds in place, the organization can leverage the benefits of security and personal management, as well as the agility and flexibility in a backup deployment that keeps applications running in the case of a disaster.

To accomplish this, it’s necessary for the organization to have a strategy that considers the current setup and management of all applications to determine the opportunity for strong cloud integration. It’s also important to use a robust call accounting solution to tightly monitor and optimize the on-premise infrastructure through the elimination of any virtual machine sprawl and orphaned systems in the quest to strengthen virtualization management. At that point, it’s critical to create a blueprint of the business needs to understand next steps.

The reality is, you don’t have to select an “all or nothing” approach to cloud computing. What’s more important is the development of the plan based on current needs so as to develop the right approach to operations.