A Profile: Deloitte Seeks Virtual/Cloud Solutions for Data Management Needs
The cloud is becoming more of a reality by the minute, as prestigious companies line up to become part of the future. The latest is Professional services specialist Deloitte. I read that their Australian division is investing some $10 million to transition to a single data center (down from two), and at the same time, starting its journey toward developing a cloud platform for internal use and for customers, too.
Deloitte is already heavily virtualized, at 40% of servers, and after the transition to a single center, that number should reach 60%. In the story, a company spokesman said: “Our longer term target is for just about everything to be virtualized.”
Also, more interestingly, Deloitte plans on building an internal on-demand cloud to support both internal and client needs. Deloitte’s construction will also involve creating a high-speed (10 GBit) dark fiber connection between Sydney and Melbourne, where the bulk of Deloitte’s staff are based.
Driving much of Deloitte’s infrastructure construction is the growing need to store and manage data for clients. Growth in demand for electronic discovery and data analytics services has led to a 400% growth in storage capacity at the firm – “with a couple of hundred terabytes of data being held online,” the spokesman said.
Dramatizing this situation, the article said Deloitte has one client with 20,000 back-up tapes – “and they need a provider able to reconstitute, de-duplicate and access this information.”
It’s always exciting to me to read about companies finally recognizing that they need to switch from old-fashioned multiple server set ups and embrace virtualization and cloud computing. I think it’s great that Deloitte is making its moves, and smart of them, too, to recognize the giant wave that’s building for third-party data management among corporations.
