Oxide Cloud Services is proud to be part of Teraco’s Africa Cloud Exchange, giving enterprises a more direct, secure and flexible way to connect to cloud services across Africa’s digital ecosystem.

In enterprise cloud, performance is not only about where your applications live. It is also about how they connect.

For businesses running hybrid and multi-cloud environments, the network layer has become a critical part of the cloud strategy. Applications, workloads, users, data platforms and digital services all depend on reliable connectivity. When that connectivity depends entirely on the public internet, organisations can face unnecessary exposure to latency, performance variability and security concerns.

That is why Teraco’s Africa Cloud Exchange, known as ACX, is such an important platform for cloud-connected businesses. According to Teraco’s ACX Handbook, Africa Cloud Exchange improves enterprise hybrid and multi-cloud performance through direct interconnection, enabling secure, direct and flexible network connections to a wide range of local and global cloud service providers.

And now, Oxide Cloud Services is part of that ecosystem.

What is Africa Cloud Exchange?

Africa Cloud Exchange is Teraco’s interconnection platform designed to help enterprises and cloud providers connect more efficiently within Africa’s most interconnected data centre hubs.

The platform allows enterprises to access the benefits of cloud without relying solely on the public internet. Through ACX, organisations can establish highly secure, direct interconnection to cloud services, while cloud operators gain direct access to African terrestrial fibre, satellite connectivity, submarine cables and an open interconnection market.

In practical terms, this means businesses can connect from within Teraco to cloud on-ramps in a way that supports:

• Hybrid cloud architectures
• Improved latency, network performance and security
• Greater interconnection flexibility through member-to-member connections
• Increased bandwidth
• Reduced costs

The ACX model also enables multiple virtual circuits to cloud providers and other networks from a single physical cross-connect, helping organisations optimise their hardware investment.

Why Direct Cloud Interconnection Matters

Cloud adoption has moved well beyond a simple hosting decision. Today, enterprises need cloud environments that can support business-critical applications, data platforms, analytics workloads, artificial intelligence initiatives, storage, disaster recovery and secure collaboration across distributed teams.

That requires more than “being in the cloud.”

It requires predictable, private and scalable connectivity.

Teraco’s ACX Handbook explains that organisations can use Africa Cloud Exchange to deploy hybrid and multi-cloud strategies by locating enterprise network infrastructure directly adjacent to cloud on-ramps. This interconnected network architecture can help improve cloud application performance, reduce latency, scale on demand, reduce network costs and deliver a better cloud experience to end users.

ACX also enables direct and private connectivity to major cloud ecosystems, including Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute, AWS Direct Connect, Google Cloud Connect and other local cloud providers. The handbook further highlights the ability to minimise security threats by using private connections to digital ecosystems and bypassing the public internet.

For enterprises, this is the difference between cloud that is simply accessible and cloud that is architected for performance.

Oxide Cloud Services on ACX

The Teraco ACX Handbook lists Oxide Cloud Services as available from Teraco Johannesburg JB1. It describes Oxide as the brand name of the cloud-native Platform as a Service offering hosted and managed by Data Sciences Corporation, powered by Jelastic PaaS Software.

The handbook further notes that Oxide Cloud Services solutions are designed to support a wide range of applications and workloads, from simple storage and compute tasks to complex data analytics and artificial intelligence projects. It also highlights the OCS focus on security, reliability and efficiency in helping businesses achieve their digital transformation goals with confidence.

For our customers, this means OCS is now positioned within an interconnection ecosystem that includes global and local cloud services, carrier connectivity and member-to-member exchange capabilities.

It also means businesses can think differently about how they connect to Oxide Cloud Services.

Instead of treating connectivity as an afterthought, enterprises can build cloud access into the architecture from the start, with direct interconnection sitting closer to the workloads, platforms and services that matter.

A Broader Cloud Services Platform for Modern Workloads

While the ACX Handbook identifies Oxide as a cloud-native Platform as a Service offering, the OCS value proposition extends across a broader cloud services portfolio.

OCS supports customers across services including PaaS, IaaS, EFSaaS, CoLocation, Consulting, BTaaS and S3 Storage. This gives organisations access to a flexible cloud services partner that can support different stages of their cloud journey, from infrastructure and storage through to managed platforms, backup, consulting and application-focused environments.

That flexibility matters because no two cloud journeys look exactly the same.

Some organisations need a platform to accelerate application deployment. Others need infrastructure capacity, secure storage, colocation, backup services or expert guidance on architecture and migration. Many need a combination of all of these.

OCS is built to support that reality.

What This Means for OCS Customers

Becoming part of Africa Cloud Exchange strengthens the way OCS can support enterprise customers that need secure, direct and scalable cloud connectivity.

For businesses already operating within Teraco’s environment, ACX creates an opportunity to connect more directly into cloud ecosystems and cloud providers. For organisations designing hybrid or multi-cloud strategies, it provides a practical route to better performance, private interconnection and reduced dependency on the public internet.

For OCS customers, the benefits are clear:

• More direct access to OCS cloud services
• Better alignment with hybrid and multi-cloud strategies
• Stronger options for private connectivity
• Improved network performance potential
• Greater interconnection flexibility
• Access to a broader digital ecosystem within Teraco

The ACX Handbook also notes operational benefits such as instant virtual circuit turn-up, QinQ support on all virtual circuits, redundant infrastructure availability, one-port access to multiple parties, and month-to-month contracting.

In short, ACX helps make cloud connectivity more flexible, more efficient and more enterprise-ready.

Built for the Next Stage of Cloud in Africa

Cloud transformation across Africa is accelerating. Businesses are modernising applications, adopting data-driven platforms, improving resilience, and looking for cloud models that can support both innovation and operational control.

This next stage of cloud growth depends on more than capacity. It depends on ecosystems.

It depends on platforms, providers, networks and data centres working together to make cloud access more secure, more direct and more useful for the enterprises that rely on it.

Oxide Cloud Services being available through Teraco’s Africa Cloud Exchange is an important step in that direction.

It places OCS within a powerful interconnection environment and gives customers another way to access cloud services built around performance, security, reliability and efficiency.

Connect with Oxide Cloud Services

Whether you are building a hybrid cloud architecture, modernising workloads, improving resilience, or looking for a cloud partner that can support your digital transformation roadmap, Oxide Cloud Services is ready to help.

With OCS now part of Teraco’s Africa Cloud Exchange ecosystem, customers have a stronger pathway to secure, direct and flexible cloud connectivity.

Explore Oxide Cloud Services solutions and speak to our team about how we can support your next stage of cloud transformation.

The classic view of technology progress uses the model Gartner first suggested. A technology has to pass through a hype period, then a low point of disillusionment, and then it might find its way into practical use cases and broader adoption. Technologies can shoot through this journey or get stuck along the way. Many fail, or they change dramatically from where they started.

But virtual and augmented reality technologies feel like exceptions. Their graphs resemble ongoing waves of hype and disillusionment, or perhaps even a circle of one into the other. Each generation does things better, yet they are still fringe technologies. The Vision Pro, Apple’s long-awaited venture into the market, has again stirred up a lot of hype and hope, and some of its use cases open exciting possibilities.

“We’re seeing a lot more general use cases,” says Rudolf van der Gryp, Senior Business Development Consultant at Data Sciences Corporation. “For example, you have a laptop with a small screen. Pop the Vision Pro on and you suddenly have a larger work area and multiple screens. You could sit on a flight or at an editing desk, and interact with your computer in a bigger way.”

Apple’s VR revolution

The Vision Pro might break through the barrier to help virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) become more mainstream. While it is very expensive, functionally limited and bound to Apple devices and software, the device still makes its point by raising the bar substantially.

“I definitely think Apple has put a stake in the ground to say that your level of immersion in the VR world will not be the same. If you look at the Vision Pro, as a piece of tech it’s quite over-engineered. But they’ve put everything into this device to say that this is what we can do with the current technologies. As new technologies develop further, it will only get better.”

The VR and AR market is littered with failures and struggling ventures. But the technologies aren’t failures. Large enterprises and public institutions have been using VR and AR for decades. Even Google Glass, the controversial AR glasses that infamously failed to wow consumers, inspired products that live on in industry applications such as design and training. Some of these examples are not what you’d expect: for example, Walmart uses VR training to prepare staff for hectic Black Friday crowds.

Enterprises have found good uses for AR and VR, which are improving and growing with new technologies such as interactive holograms and aerohaptics. Some of the concepts might seem too cutting-edge or even gimmicky, and only time will tell on the value of some of these technologies. But time is also moving quickly. The Oculus Quest, which turned VR into a standalone device, only debuted in 2019. Five years later, the Vision Pro has people driving around wearing VR headsets.

People walking around in VR bubbles is a bit dystopian. Yet, the pragmatic applications are interesting, especially when incorporating drones or digital twins. And chalk another one up for the Vision Pro: by adding Apple’s Siri, it formally brings agents into the VR space. Large language generative AI is the next logical step. And we can take that further, says Van der Gryp: “Imagine a lesson where they use AI to recreate a historical figure? I can have a conversation with the realistic likeness of this person. For example, in science class, imagine you’re learning about the theory of relativity from Einstein.”

The idea is not absurd: last year, a French museum hosted a Vincent Van Gogh exhibition, and trained an AI with the artist’s diaries and letters to become a digital avatar visitors can talk to.

Does the Apple Vision Pro and its peers, such as the impending Meta Oculus Quest 3, mark broader enterprise and consumer adoption, or yet another swell and crash of the AR/VR wave? An enterprise may have many or only a few use cases for AR and VR. The best strategy to be prepared with an agile technology environment.

“Everything starts with that modern data centre, having a cloud or container-based consumption model where you can spin up workloads and shut them down quite easily. You can’t run these types of projects through the traditional IT procurement cycle of getting a spec starting and then going out on an RFP and then ordering servers and then waiting for the servers to come in. That takes too long and costs too much. With modern IT infrastructure, you’ll have the freedom to experiment and find those use cases that work for you.”

South African businesses are breaking up with global hyperscalers to regain control over unpredictable costs, ensure POPIA compliance, and eliminate high latency. By switching to local sovereign cloud providers like Oxide Cloud Services (OCS), enterprises secure predictable, Rand-based billing and 100% local data residency, improving application performance by up to 70%.

What are the main challenges South African enterprises face with global hyperscalers?

While global giants offer scale, their models often come with “strings attached” that don’t align with local market needs. The primary challenges include:

• Unpredictable “Bill Shock”: Pricing models are often complicated on purpose; a 2023 study showed that 38% of enterprises exceeded their cloud budgets by more than 20%.
  According to Flexera’s State of the Cloud research, “Managing cloud spend remains the top cloud challenge for organisations worldwide.” — Flexera State of the Cloud Report.

• Currency Volatility: Because hyperscalers typically bill in foreign currency, South African IT budgets are at the mercy of the Rand-Dollar exchange rate.

• Regulatory compliance: South African companies must comply with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). Even though hyperscalers now have local regions in South Africa, many companies still worry about data potentially leaving the country, disaster recovery site locations, and access to foreign jurisdictions.

• Connectivity, Latency, and Network Reliability: Cloud assumes high-quality connectivity, which can be challenging locally, especially due to bandwidth costs, fibre issues, latency for hybrid deployments, and any dependency on international links. As network architects often say, “Latency is not a bug—it is physics.”

• Skills Shortage and Operational Complexity: Running the cloud properly requires specialised skills like cloud architects, DevOps engineers, security engineers, and FinOps specialists for each of the hyperscale environments.

• Lack of Localised Support and Ownership: Enterprises are often forced into generic, ticket-based support models with limited access to experienced engineers who understand their environment. This results in slower resolution times, poor accountability, and a disconnect between business needs and cloud execution—especially in complex or hybrid setups.

• Lack of Control and Local-First Alignment: South African enterprises are increasingly prioritising ownership, agility, and local control. However, hyperscaler models are not designed around local-first strategies, making it difficult for organisations to fully align infrastructure with business priorities, regulatory expectations, and performance needs.

How does Oxide Cloud Services solve the “bill shock” problem?

Oxide Cloud Services eliminates the monthly “billing roller-coaster” by providing 100% South African Rand-based billing. This allows organisations to plan for significant shifts through quarterly exchange rate adjustments rather than reacting to daily market volatility.

Why is data sovereignty critical for POPIA compliance?

Under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), South African companies must ensure sensitive data is stored and processed in a compliant and auditable manner. Many hyperscalers store data and metadata in offshore regions, increasing legal risk and complicating regulatory compliance. OCS is fully hosted within South Africa’s borders, ensuring that all services comply with in-country regulations.

Does moving to a local cloud mean sacrificing performance?

No. In fact, local infrastructure often outperforms global hyperscalers for South African users.

Oxide Cloud Services (OCS) leverages enterprise-grade infrastructure, the same class of technology that powers some of the largest private-sector organisations in the country. This is enabled through strategic partnerships with global and local leaders, including Pure Storage, Supermicro, NVIDIA, Microsoft, NEC, and leading data centre providers Digital Parks Africa and Teraco.

OCS infrastructure is physically hosted within Digital Parks Africa and Teraco data centres, ensuring secure, high-performance local data storage that remains fully within South Africa.

By keeping data close to users and leveraging local interconnect ecosystems such as NAPAfrica, OCS significantly reduces latency and dependence on international routing. The result is faster, more reliable performance, with clients experiencing response times up to 70% faster than with traditional global cloud setups.

What is the “Boutique Cloud” advantage?

Taking back control means moving away from a faceless support system to a partnership. OCS offers Boutique Cloud Support through Data Sciences Corporation, providing a high standard of personalised assistance that global giants cannot match. This “Data-First” approach ensures that, whether you are running legacy applications, bare-metal assets, or cloud-native microservices, your transformation aligns with your unique needs.

This matters more than most buyers expect.

“Cloud success depends more on architecture and governance than on platform selection.” — Enterprise Cloud Architecture Best Practice Guidance

Boutique support is especially valuable for:

• Hybrid environments
• Legacy modernisation
• AI and data platform builds
• Regulated industry workloads
• Performance-sensitive applications

The Future of Cloud is Local-First

Major South African enterprises, including banks and insurance providers, are already re-evaluating their strategies to prioritise ownership and agility.

This shift is not about breaking up with hyperscalers—it’s about expanding beyond them. Forward-thinking organisations are adopting local sovereign cloud environments as a strategic complement, enabling greater control, compliance, and performance where it matters most.

The goal is not to burn bridges but to build a smarter, more balanced cloud strategy—one that works for your business, not the other way around.

Ready to own your cloud and your future?

• [Book a consultation with our team] to explore a smarter infrastructure strategy.
• [Download the OCS Overview] to see how our enterprise-grade sovereign cloud can scale your business.

Data Sciences Corporation, which positions itself as a leading systems integrator and provider of data-driven technologies, announces today that it forges a new partnership with GigaSpaces Technologies, a global pioneer in the in-memory computing domain. The company’s flagship product is Smart DIH – an out-of-the-box solution that powers real-time modern applications, ensuring they run on fresh data, while simplifying and speeding up the development cycles of new digital services.

As part of this partnership, Data Sciences will have the opportunity to introduce enterprises across South Africa to cutting-edge digital transformation technology based on DIH architecture.

Companies today rely on multiple systems to store their data, each with its own configuration and data flows to front-end applications. Smart DIH breaks down these data silos by replicating all the organisation’s data into a unified data layer that is highly accessible and always available to front-end applications. This enables organisations to provide their customers and internal stakeholders with always-on services based on fresh data – even when specific systems are temporarily down.

“The main reason that guided us in partnering with GigaSpaces was not just their unique technology, but also the significant business impact that this solution can have on enterprises and organisations, particularly in speeding up their digital transformation,” says Adrian Wood, Director at Data Sciences. “Simply put, this technology helps businesses make the most out of their data, turning them into digital-first, data-driven enterprises.”

“We see the partnership with Data Sciences as a strategic growth engine for us in this region,” says Adi Paz, GigaSpaces CEO. “While we have a strong customer base in the US and all over Europe, we have a lot of room to grow in South Africa. It’s a market with huge potential for us, specifically in the banking and retail sectors.”

Residing at the intersection of data and application integration, Smart DIH consolidates data from multiple heterogeneous systems into a highly performant data layer. Low-code tools empower data professionals to deliver data micro-services in hours rather than days, shortening developing cycles and ensuring data consistency across all digital channels.

Data Sciences Corporation celebrates 10 years of offering a wide range of services, from storage and backup appliances to artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Its winning strategy over the past 10 years was to stay relevant to its valued enterprise customers by growing its core products and expanding into new technology offerings, as and when the market was ready.

With a consultative approach, it has maintained a good standing with its customers, always aiming to tailor solutions to specific needs. Reflecting on the successes achieved over the past 10 years, the company’s ability to build close partnerships with its vendors also stands out as a highlight. Data Sciences Corporation is very proud to be recognised by its vendors as representing the highest tier of partnership available, and often referred to as their “extension” in the market. A major differentiator for Data Sciences Corporation is its ability to service the technology it sells and provide its customers with a single engagement point.

Although the core business lies in the data centre infrastructure, Data Sciences Corporation has, over the past few years, invested time and money to identify and adopt next-generation technology. With its commitment to remain always forward-looking and expanding into new markets, Data Sciences Corporation excels at translating value to its existing and future customer-base. For example, its partnership with NVIDIA and the investment into AI technologies will be a strong focus for the business going forward, embracing the new wave of technology.

Data Sciences Corporation has also developed a unique Multi-Cloud Platform-as-a-Service, offering cloud-native solutions, using modern models that provide unmatched flexibility, scalability and reliability, resulting in improved uptime and security.

The company believes it is through this ability to provide unique, relevant and value-adding technologies and solutions that help solve customers’ challenges that gives Data Sciences Corporation the edge to solve customers’ complex needs.

With growth and expansion in mind, Jean Coetzee has been appointed as Data Sciences Corporation’s Group Executive for Enterprise Development. He is responsible for developing and executing strategies that increase revenue, expand their customer base and develop new business opportunities.

On sharing his vision, Coetzee said: “My chosen approach is to have a customer-advocate mindset, meaning that one must stay in tune with the customers you have or would like to have. With this outlook and through cross-functional collaboration within the business, as well as an understanding of the market dynamics, I will develop strategies and ultimately execute on the kind of experiences we would like to create.”

Coetzee has close to 30 years of ICT experience, encompassing various senior roles. He has proven expertise in managing and leading teams and businesses. In his previous role, he was responsible for growth at Teraco.

Coetzee is an MBA graduate from the Unisa School for Business Leaders, with a dissertation focus on business-to-business relationship marketing, along with several other qualifications, such as Digital Strategies for Business at Columbia Business School.

“We are very excited about Jean joining the team and look forward to the next 10 years of collaborating with our current and future customers and providing unique and relevant technologies that solve their challenges,” says Gerard Almon, MD of Data Sciences Corporation. 

Our roots stretch back to the ethos of a now-forgotten giant of the 1980s, Persetel, an indomitable entity in the mainframe arena. Leveraging Hitachi mainframe and storage technology, Persetel made its mark against giants like IBM and Amdhal, providing state-of-the-art technology at competitive prices underlined by top-tier service.

As the 1990s approached, the tide began to turn from mainframe to open systems technology in enterprise data centres. This shift led to the merger of Persetel and Q Data to form Persetel Q Data Holdings (PQ Holdings), redirecting focus towards open systems and severing ties with Hitachi. An opportunity was found amid change, and the former Hitachi team set forth to promote new storage array technology in South Africa.

In 2000, Shoden Data Systems launched with Hitachi’s backing, introducing the revolutionary Hitachi Lightning Storage to the South African market. As an underdog, the team demonstrated innovation and unmatched service, eventually building a significant business. Shoden’s success attracted global attention, leading to its acquisition by Hitachi Data Systems in 2012.

Disagreements with corporate strategies and emerging disruptive technologies paved the way for core team members to establish Data Sciences Corporation in August 2013. With aspirations to build a business centred on people, we sought to continue the legacy of innovation and world-class service.

“Our careful selection of technology partners, such as Pure Storage and NEC, has been vital to our success, propelling us to new heights,” says Adrian Wood, Business Operations Director, Data Sciences Corporation.

These partnerships have earned us several awards and a reputation as an “extension” of our vendors in the market.

Throughout our 10-year journey, staying relevant to our enterprise customers and building trust one client at a time has been a cornerstone of our success. We are proud to have a robust base of sought-after brands nationwide.

In South Africa’s challenging and sometimes overcrowded technology market, differentiation through next-generation technology that adds real business value has been the underpinning principle of our growth and continued competitiveness.

As we look forward to the next five to 10 years, the original strategies and core values will remain central to our success. Our investments in areas such as AI and our partnership with NVIDIA have positioned us to embrace the next wave of technology.

“We close this reflection amazed and grateful for the success we have achieved as Data Sciences in South Africa,” says Wood. Our achievements are a testament to our commitment to service excellence, the unwavering support from our partners and the trust our customers have placed in us. The future is bright and we remain dedicated to providing innovative solutions and exceptional service in the years to come.

If you’re fortunate enough to work in the field of Information Technology (IT), congratulations! You are part of one of the most popular and rapidly expanding industries in the technology sector. 

As an IT professional, you are part of an elite group. You are at the forefront of innovation, change, and progress. You are helping to shape the future of our digital world.

However, let’s be honest and acknowledge the truth that lies beneath the surface. This industry, while exciting and rewarding, can also be demanding, stressful, and intimidating, particularly for those who are just starting out. 

The challenges can sometimes feel overwhelming, and it’s easy to lose your sense of humor and sanity along the way. This guide will provide you with tips, tricks and strategies to help you manage Enterprise IT. It will help you to keep your sanity and sense of humour.

Enterprise IT engineering presents a unique set of challenges that can make problem-solving feel like a daunting task. It can be daunting to approach problems of great magnitude. However, it is important to do so with an attitude of curiosity, enthusiasm, and awe. Embrace your inner detective as you dive deep into the data, cracking the code and unraveling its mysteries.

A mindset that values the journey and progress is beneficial. It can increase problem-solving abilities and make the process more enjoyable. Expecting immediate solutions will not have the same effect. Remember, every byte of information brings you closer to the solution, so savor each step along the way.

In the fast-paced world of enterprise IT, knowledge and technology evolve rapidly. It’s essential to embrace a mindset of continuous learning to stay ahead of the curve. Embrace the opportunity to enhance your skills and expand your knowledge base.

Seek out relevant resources such as online courses, webinars, and industry publications to keep up with the latest trends and advancements. Engage in networking and knowledge-sharing activities, both within your organization and in professional communities. 

By immersing yourself in a culture of learning, you’ll not only enhance your problem-solving abilities but also build a solid foundation for your professional growth.

While individual brilliance is important, success in enterprise IT often relies on effective collaboration. Don’t hesitate to reach out to your colleagues, mentors, or subject matter experts for guidance and support. Tap into the collective intelligence and diverse perspectives within your organization to tackle complex problems more efficiently.

Collaboration not only allows for the exchange of ideas and knowledge but also fosters a sense of teamwork. Embrace the power of collaboration by participating in team projects, attending brainstorming sessions, and leveraging collaborative tools and platforms. Together, you can overcome any challenge that comes your way.

The tech industry is filled with jargon that might be hard to understand if you don’t work in the field. And if you’ve spent any time listening to tech nerds get going, you know the many hilarious acronyms that IT professionals have coined over the years. Case in point:

• • PICNIC — Problem in Chair, Not in Computer
  • PEBCAK — Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard (a personal favourite of mine)
  • RTFM — Read the “freaking” manual

However, that’s no reason to stop there. There are specific acronyms in the tech industry whose meanings are unclear or whose abbreviations don’t correspond with the actual technologies they represent. In an effort to rectify this situation (and because it was funny to do so), we found some common IT acronyms to better represent their actual meanings.

• • BBS — Bizarre Beeping Sounds
  • BSOD — Bummer. Serious OS Disaster
  • COBOL — Crazy Old But Operational Language
  • DHCP — Disconnection Headaches Causing Problems
  • DSL — Decidedly Slow Link 
  • HTTP — Head To This Page
  • HTML — Hieroglyphics, To Machines Legible
  • JPEG — Just Pretty Electronic Graphics
  • MTBF — My Thing’s Breakdown Forthcoming
  • MS-DOS — My Starter “Down-Memory-Lane” Operating System
  • SSD — Super Speedy Disks … or if you have a small budget, Spend Some Dollars
  • WWW — Wealth of Weird Websites

sData Science is a high-stress field, and it’s easy to become bogged down in the seriousness of it all. However, it’s essential to remember not to take yourself or the situation too seriously. 

Mistakes and challenges are inevitable, and it’s far more productive to approach them with a sense of humor and fun. Laughing at yourself can help you gain perspective and make the task seem less overwhelming and daunting. Here is a funny story to help you laugh at the exciting world of IT:

My computer is not yours

Me: XYZ technical support, how may I assist you?

User: I have some difficulty in locating some files on my computer, it seems I am not able to open any files

Me: Sir, could you please check whether you are able to get the Desktop screen.

User: Yes, now what?

Me: Can you open My Computer?

User: How can I open your computer?

The field of enterprise IT engineering, encompassing data visualisations, technology companies, and analysing data, is a dynamic and ever-evolving landscape. As professionals in this field, we bridge the gap between computer science and business needs, driving innovation and progress within tech companies. 

While the challenges we face can be immense, it’s crucial to approach them with a sense of humour and embrace different types of humour. This not only helps maintain our sanity but also fosters a positive and creative work environment. By combining our technical expertise with a lighthearted approach, we can unlock new possibilities and make significant contributions to the data-driven world of enterprise IT.

Many years ago, IT was seen as a supporting function to many organisations, “a tool to make the business more efficient and, of course, capture and safeguard important data”.

“We evolved from that way of thinking some decades ago to where we are now; now we have IT being very key in the success of many organisations, with many relying on IT to develop, test, launch and market new products,” says Isaac Makoto, Business Development Manager at Data Sciences.

Many organisations are driven by various factors when deciding on how to implement and deploy their IT infrastructure. The need to be quick to market with new products, among others, was one of the key drivers that saw the huge adoption of cloud solutions.

Cloud solutions have seen a huge adoption over the last decade, amid promises of various benefits. Some of the benefits promised and being delivered include.

• Quick IT deployment and thus quick time to market on products;
• Resource flexibility and scalability, leveraging a pool of available resources; and
• Efficiency, resources and costs – use what you need and pay for what you use. 

For a long time, large organisations have deployed centralised IT solutions, allowing them to manage centrally all the aspects of the infrastructure, such as performance tuning, DR, backups, security and procurement of the infrastructure and the associated resources.

While cloud solutions, as promised, brought about various benefits, unfortunately there are drawbacks, some of which seen to date include but are not limited to the following:

• Shadow IT, resulting in security and regulatory concerns;
• Legacy applications that cannot be migrated to the cloud; and
• Data protection strategies, cloud versus on-premises.

This means organisations must leverage both on-premises and public cloud technologies and thus embark on a hybrid cloud strategy, adopting the cloud while still accommodating legacy environments.

IT infrastructure solutions are characterised primarily by, but not limited to, the following elements:

• Compute;
• Networking;
• Storage; and
• Backups.

The Data Sciences team has a wealth of experience in solutions, encompassing but not limited to all the four elements above, with access to specific products that provide end-to-end enterprise solutions covering this space. Three brands I would like to mention that can add value to the journey of the hybrid cloud adoption:

• Pure Storage
• Commvault
• VAST Data

Pure Storage

Pure Storage, a data storage company focused on providing storage for primary application data. It was at the forefront of the adoption of flash arrays in the data centre, moving away from spinning disk technology at a time when flash technology was seen as expensive and reserved only for niche applications if it wasn’t deployed in a tiered architecture.

Pure Storage Cloud Block Store – organisations can deploy a virtual array with all Pure’s functionality on any public cloud platform, enjoy the same benefits as an on-premises deployment and replicate data between the two environments.

Pure Storage Safe-Mode Snapshots – This built-in feature enables the creation of read-only snapshots of production volumes, which cannot be altered, encrypted or deleted. These can be offloaded to a safe location offsite or in the cloud to be retrieved later when needed.

Pure Storage Portworks – Cloud-native applications running in containers such as Kubernetes can be easily provisioned persistent storage with Portworx, by abstracting away the complexity of underlying storage infrastructure and providing a unified storage layer for applications.

Commvault

Commvault, a software company focused on providing data management and protection solutions to enterprise customers. Over three decades in this space and you might be excused if you mistakenly see Commvault as “legacy backup software”. However, over the years, Commvault has proved that “legacy backup software” is a term nowhere near describing the company, as it has continued to be innovative.

Along with providing unmatched solutions for bare metal environments, Commvault, through innovation, provides comprehensive data protection solutions targeted at the cloud.

Cloud Data Management – With this, Commvault helps organisations to move their data between their different cloud platforms, on-premises versus cloud.

Cloud disaster recovery – Customers can automate their DR testing and actual DR across different cloud platforms, providing flexibility all the way to the file level restore.

Cloud Storage – Commvault, in partnership with Microsoft Azure, has launched a cloud backup solution branded Metallic for different requirements, including end-point protection.

VAST Data – “universal storage for all your data”

This company was founded with one aim, to be the next storage platform standard tier with flash, replacing all existing tiers of storage, such as hard drives, across all different environments, including backup data.

While Pure Storage accelerated the adoption of flash into the mainstream production data, VAST Data’s ambitious aim has seen the company accelerating the adoption of flash into the backup space.

With the availability of technologies such as QLC flash, revolutionary data reduction and highly efficient erasure coding, we have seen VAST Data bring flash price points down to palatable levels in the backup space.

Through the scale-out architecture, the system can scale from Petabytes to Exabytes in a single solution with the ability to independently scale capacity versus performance as per the requirements. Ultimately, customers can:

• Accelerate backups at any scale;
• Restore and recover business-critical data and applications in minutes, not days or weeks; and
• Take snapshots of data and offload to S3, with choice of on-premises or the public cloud.

In conclusion, many organisations need hybrid cloud solutions to overcome public cloud problems. Organisations can profit from the cloud while keeping legacy environments by using on-premises and public cloud technologies. Data Sciences can help with compute, networking, storage and backups. Pure Storage, Commvault and VAST Data offer end-to-end enterprise solutions that enhance hybrid cloud adoption. These solutions enable fast IT implementation, resource flexibility, scalability, efficiency and better data protection.

Don’t miss out on the benefits of hybrid cloud solutions. Contact the Data Sciences team today to learn more about how we can assist your organisation in implementing a hybrid cloud strategy and utilising top brands such as Pure Storage, Commvault and VAST Data for improved IT deployment, resource flexibility, scalability, efficiency and data protection. If you would like to have further discussion regarding the topics in this article, please feel free to reach out to Data Sciences Corporation by visiting our website, www.datasciences.co.za.