Global cloud experts believe the industry
is entering an era of massive cloud enabled data centres run by third-party
organisations – including immense, virtualised structures operated by the likes
of Amazon, Microsoft and Google – capable of optimising costs and maximising
service availability for clients.
It is a concept that has resonated with South
African carriers and network operators who have welcomed the idea of a neutral
environment – where traditional business rivals can interconnect their networks.
In the telco space, Telkom has been quick to endorse the concept, on the back
of vendor neutrality's acceptance and growth around the world.
For data centre managers, the advantages of
vendor neutrality are found in the benefits of being able to select service
providers strategically in order to reduce costs, while being able to connect
to vendors quickly and easily.
For enterprise clients the advantages can
be found in the resulting ecosystem where multiple service providers aggregate
and offer a diverse range of services that are only a simple interconnect away.
