The cloud-computing market is highly competitive, but it is also an emerging sector which is still filled with ambitious start-ups as well as established providers.
There are a number of methods used to identify the most important new players who have joined the ranks of cloud-computing companies. Perhaps one of the easiest ways to identify the relevant firms is to use the CloudStore platform launched by the UK government in February 2012.
CloudStore is a large database of more than 1700 different cloud-based services and companies which are available. Although it is primarily focused on the public sector, it is also applicable to any private company considering migrating some of their systems and applications over to the cloud.
In the future, there are plans to make the CloudStore, which is being touted as an eventual solution for service procurement, even more flexible and better equipped to rate those providers which it lists. But for the time being, its comparison capabilities remain in a nascent form.
BizCloud from CSC is one of the more popular private cloud solutions on the market, offering you access to a flexible platform which is billed as a service at a standard rate. You can benefit from the combination of control and management security which come from private cloud adoption, while still enjoying the scalable platform and associated costs.
Many companies which must abide by strict regulations to ensure compliance choose this type of private cloud platform in order to tackle workloads appropriately and have room for expansion further down the line.
Cloud Generator from @UK PLC is an on-demand, bespoke cloud platform which is eminently elastic, allowing clients to create clouds on the fly in order to support a spike in usage. If you need extra email capacity or greater e-commerce flexibility, then this is the provider and platform which is fast becoming a favourite thanks to CloudStore.
For collaborative and sharing purposes, Castrum is the cloud provider to consider at the moment. It offers secure, adaptive solutions which offer levels of protection that can stand up to the scrutiny of financial regulators.
Because Castrum’s services operate in a web-based environment, it is easy to access from almost any device both in the office and when out and about. You can integrate Castrum into your own business site so that employees can quickly harness the platform without having to go through a third-party point of access.
If you want a government-sanctioned consultancy for all things relating to the cloud, then Barony is one of the recommended firms to use. It has been in operation for almost two decades and deals largely with public-sector organisations, although through partnerships developed on the CloudStore it is well positioned to advise and bring together relevant private firms and the cloud providers they might require.
The cloud-based collaborative content service OpenText Social Workplace (OTSW) has become another important tool for businesses in recent months. Its solutions allow you to manage blogs, social-networking services, online communities, user-review platforms and many more assets of the contemporary online world.
You can profile users, find influential people and trend setters to follow and learn how to better manage the social profile of your business so that it remains relevant in this fast-paced sector of the industry.
There are many other up-and-coming cloud providers, services and peripheral companies within the sector. While cloud adoption is still considered problematic because of the range of choice and the lack of standardisation, informing yourself of the available options is the best way to remain ahead of the game and your competitors and in control of your destiny.
This article was written by Daisy Group plc, leading providers of data and hosting solutions with over 12 years experience. Daisy provides cloud hosting services, colocation data centres and cloud computing services for corporate, public sector and enterprise companies across the UK. With 3 UK Data Centres in Manchester, Enfield, London and Southampton which provide 24/7 support 365 Daisy are the natural choice for business hosting solutions.
