Cloud and mobility solutions: helping Alaska businesses do more with less.

• Author: Barbour, Tracy
• Position: TELECOM & TECHNOLOGY

Cloud and mobility trends are playing out in manifold ways with telecommunications companies in Alaska. Businesses are increasingly reaching for cloud and mobile solutions to leverage the capabilities of technology, and companies like Alaska Communications, GCI, Verizon, and AT&T are expanding their service offerings to meet the demand.

The "cloud" is a term that's often used in business, but carries a nebulous meaning. There's a spectrum of solutions that fall under the cloud category, according to Martin Cary, GCI's senior vice president of business services.

For example, GCI operates several data centers in Alaska and Portland, Oregon, and can offer infrastructure as a service to assist customers with their cloud computing and storage needs. From a more global context, GCI can facilitate cloud solutions through peering arrangements with other providers. "We would interconnect with them for communication and connectivity," Cary explains. "They, in turn, would connect with large cloud providers like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. It provides an end-to-end solution anywhere in the world."

Cloud Becoming Preferred

There is a "relentless move" to the cloud, says lohn Barnhardt, GCI's Seattle-based vice president of business product development. "At this point, many companies are looking at the cloud first," he says. "I think we are definitely in an environment where the cloud is the predominate choice for new deployments."

One of the overwhelming drivers of the transition to the cloud is the constantly-increasing complexity of the IT environment, Barnhardt says. People are looking for places they can outsource activities that are not core to their business. The initial transition to the cloud was more financially-driven, but now that's less of a factor. "What you get is an ability to be more focused on your core business and to scale infinitely and instantaneously to any level of service," he says.

The digital imperative is also driving businesses' gravitation to the cloud. Every business needs to be leveraging the capabilities of the digital world to make their business better, Barnhardt says, and cloud and mobile technology can enhance this process. "It's not just for technology-centric businesses, but for every business," he says.

As another trend, the cloud is leading providers to decouple infrastructure from the managed solution for customers, Cary says. "Cloud and virtualization has allowed us to separate the physical from the virtual and deliver services in areas where we don't own the network," he explains. "While the underlying transport technologies have not changed significantly, the ability to pick up your application and put it where you want is a lot easier than it used to be."

Geography is also becoming less of a barrier, Cary says. More and more, businesses expect to have connectivity regardless of their location. There's a...