For Fundamental Application Challenges, The Fix Is In The Cloud

While there are many reasons for corporate IT operations to embrace private cloud computing and transform to an IT-as-a-Service model, optimizing the performance of basic IT tools like email storage, database management and file sharing are among the compelling motivators.

Consider, for example, the fact that EMC IT faced challenges with its use of three fundamental Microsoft applications that many companies—perhaps yours—have long relied on: SharePoint for collaboration, SQL Server for database management, and Exchange for email.

As user demand for these tools grew, each application had its own challenges:

1. Over the years, business users’ unregulated adoption of SharePoint had resulted in multiple file sharing instances across the company, creating management problems, a lack of safeguards on sensitive EMC data and inconsistent back up and maintenance practices.
2. With Exchange, our employee email solution, we were having a hard time scaling our environment to keep up with user demand for bigger mailboxes and increased ability for mobile device connections.
3. EMC IT was coping with growing demand for SQL Server, a relational database management system that stores and retrieves data for other applications. Scaling out physical servers for the many applications that use data in a SQL grid was difficult because such servers ran out of capacity very quickly and it took forever to acquire added resources.

In each case, moving these applications to a private cloud environment using EMC VCE Vblock technology delivered the scalability and agility we needed to optimize these crucial applications. We were also able to offer these services to users through our self-service catalog as part of our ITaaS model.

As a result, customers are able to pursue their IT needs via a self-service model that gives them a say in their IT investments while EMC IT retains control over these vital services that are so essential to driving EMC business.

For more details on how EMC IT addressed these Microsoft application challenges, check out our white paper, EMC IT Delivers Business Value Through ITaaS: The Power of EMC and Microsoft Technology.