Nube. Lejos del cielo, hoy día esa palabra también da nombre al lugar abstracto constituido por redes de computadoras. Para las empresas, la nube o cloud (por su equivalente en inglés) significa una nueva fase en el mundo de la tecnología, que habilita y facilita negocios.»El mejor socio tecnológico para su negocio»; así se define la empresa de tecnología de la información (IT) nacional Urudata que, como lo ha hecho desde hace más de 30 años, está a la vanguardia de la tecnología. Y la nube no queda fuera de este concepto.»Sin duda alguna la difusión masiva del cloud constituye hoy una realidad que ha transformado la dinámica empresarial de forma muy relevante», afirmó Luis Enrique Layerle, gerente comercial de la empresa –que es desde hace 20 años socia de Microsoft–, en diálogo con conversó con El Observador sobre esa extensión de la nube y el Internet de las Cosas como una herramienta esencial en los negocios.
Why is the cloud so important for businesses today?
The socialisation and diffusion of personal devices and technologies makes it very easy for people to access the information they need from the same devices, at any time and from anywhere. This leads companies to tailor their services so that they are consumed internally and by customers. Also that it is used as an elastic and unlimited access and computing platform, and that it is deepened through the internet of things, so that services to animals and machines, for example, are orchestrated in real time.
What tangible advantages does the cloud have for business?
By conception, the cloud is an elastic platform; it allows significant fluctuations in demand without deteriorating the experience of each user, it is accessed from the internet and from any device. It is a self-service platform, providing autonomy to users. Cloud providers can make optimal use of the pool of resources, the service delivered is permanently measured and charged per use. This socialises access to the cloud and its resources and creates a different economy from the previous one, where users are charged and pay per use, and many services become much cheaper even for the end user. At the level of health and research, this socialisation opens the door to universal access to treatments and research resources, until recently unthinkable due to the high investment required and the geographical and processing capacity restrictions.
How to work in the cloud with companies in different industries, e.g. livestock farming?
This is an area that breaks the classic management paradigm. In addition to pre-existing advances in traceability and dairy technology, we are adding devices, sensors and cloud services, which take professionalisation in the production and management of livestock and agriculture to a higher level. We even involve Big Data technologies.
What is the difference between Urudata and other Uruguayan companies offering similar services?
Urudata has more than 30 years of constant development and healthy growth, cultivating professionalism and adding value to its clients by understanding their needs and adapting its solutions and services proposals, providing the most competitive profile from the role of technological partner that we aspire to occupy with all our clients. We have developed a map of top technology partners, global leaders in their areas of solutions and competence, which allows us to best meet the technology needs of our customers. Microsoft, HP, HPe, IBM, Cisco, VMware, Citrix, Riverbed, Fortinet, Palo Alto, Symantec, McAfee, Red Hat, INTEL among others, are the strategic partners with whom we build the value chain for our customers.
How do you think the cloud and its solutions should be considered in companies?
Two approaches can be distinguished: one at the level of optimising and improving business processes, and the other more disruptive and less conventional, addressing new scenarios. From a practical, how-to point of view, I believe that the cloud should be on the strategic consideration agenda of every business.
How should risks be assessed?
This is an interesting point. The cloud concept produces a sense of increased risk and uncertainty in the first instance. The infrastructure and data are no longer within the company and are physically under the responsibility of cloud providers. What needs to be analysed, then, is what security rules this new arrangement must comply with, in terms of confidentiality, integrity, authenticity and availability.
This leads to a greater maturity of the company's policies in this regard, and it can be seen that cloud solutions are much more secure than one might think a priori, that it is feasible to operate more securely and even with greater availability than in previous scenarios. It is simply that these aspects, just as they are taken care of in conventional networks, must be taken care of in the cloud with the appropriate tools and solutions, and with the corresponding audits.
Making business more efficient
The cloud offers a significant potential for transformation in different business processes, which deserves to be analysed in order to migrate and develop new solutions. Working with the cloud means making datacenter and networking, platform and software resources available to people and companies around the world, in an attractive and immediate modality that even allows pay-per-use. And, although the potential is enormous, in the Uruguayan market it is still unexplored. Urudata is actively working to develop and give prominence to cloud initiatives for clients in very diverse industries ranging from forestry, logistics, production, service providers, among others. With these new initiatives it manages to transform the business model.
The potential of these tools is very large as they allow a great exposure and massification of own business processes that add specific value to your customers and partners. Common examples of this are payment methods such as debit and credit cards. It also allows the development of services and the improvement of business processes, taking them to the cloud and using their associated new technologies of massive data management, analysis, mobile, and the internet of things. This has an impact on businesses as diverse as logistics, transport, production and medical services, among others.
Source: OMedia for El Observador
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