Why AEC Companies are Adopting As-a-Service Models For IT Infrastructures

Mastering disruptive technologies has become a dominant force for business success.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) where trends like generative design, building information modelling, drones, laser scanning surveys and augmented and virtual reality offer fresh competitive edge.

To make the most of these opportunities, AEC companies are increasingly turning to infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). Not least because it allows them to super-quickly transform networks, storage, and compute.

Acquiring the digital foundation they need for an affordable monthly price – escaping large upfront investment and recruitment of costly IT specialists – so the business can drive for growth, lower overheads, and better margins.

Getting Started with Managed Service

The first step is to identify the prime activities for moving to a managed service, typically as part of a phased migration or discrete work packages. Within the AEC industry the scope of IaaS deployments covers the complete IT stack and multiple business case focus areas.

They all share one big plus point that can be easily overlooked – releasing internal resources to focus on transformational work instead of mundane IT tasks.

Why Turn to As-a-Service Models?

Backup-as-a-service

The benefits of back-up-as-a-service include:

  • Faster speed of recovery
  • Eliminating tape-based storage
  • Cheaper access to the latest backup technologies
  • Savings on equipment, people, and offsite data warehousing
  • Rapid scaling, instead of ordering and waiting for new hardware to arrive

Network-as-a-service

The benefits of network-as-a-service include:

  • Improved management with faster issues resolution
  • Save time and hassle opening and tracking cases
  • Faster provisioning with ability to rapidly scale up and down
  • Upskilling internal teams with cost-effective, on-the-job training
  • Access to the latest technologies, spreading the cost as monthly OpEx
  • Better IT planning with results geared around SLAs and business outcomes

Storage-as-a-service

The benefits of storage-as-a-service include:

  • Simpler budgeting with predictable monthly costs, charged per TB or GB
  • Shorter project lead times with ability to quickly spin-up services
  • Savings from not having to oversize storage domains and carry spare capacity
  • No more worrying about products reaching end-of-life or end-of-support
  • Additional time and money savings, for example on patch management
  • Greater uptime with clear SLAs

Monitoring-as-a-service

The benefits of monitoring-as-a-service include:

  • Less chance of downtime due to 7/24 proactive intervention
  • Reduction in false positive alerts, one of the biggest timewasters for IT Ops staff
  • Savings on staff productivity and support costs
  • Better IT visibility and insight into risks, such as equipment at end of life or outside warranty and support
  • More accurate asset registers
  • Better capacity forecasting and prioritisation of IT investments

 IAAS Drivers

A view shared by Gartner who predict IaaS will be the fastest growing market with a 27.6% surge. So, who’s driving this trend and why? Mostly it originates from IT people. They’re expected to keep the business ahead of the curve. Yet, the luxury of employing large, multi-skilled teams has long gone.

Usually, the only option is to bring in highly paid specialists to fix issues involving specific technologies, or IT generalists to cover ever widening daily operations. The problem is keeping hold of them. Those not tempted by better offers usually get itchy feet due to lack of variety. And then you’re back where you started.

IaaS – whether deployed as a fully managed or blended IT support model – takes this problem away and offers several extra advantages. Nearly half of participants surveyed by McKinsey plan to use tier-two and tier-three IaaS providers for at least one-off premise workload.

Choosing an IaaS Provider

So, what should you look for when choosing an IaaS provider? Here are some all-important questions to ask:

Service Levels

Do they offer 24x7x365 cover and the required SLA performance for uptime and fault response, for example?

Service And Support

Will you have direct access to the technical support team? What channels do they offer? Will you get a dedicated account manager?

Contracting

How easy are they to work with? Do they offer clear, single billing, or will you be buried under even more paperwork? How simple is it to make moves, adds and changes? How much of the admin task is automated?

Service Management

How will they ensure you retain overall visibility and control of your IT services? Do they provide a portal? What features and rights does it offer? Does the helpdesk and ticketing process meet your requirements (and those of your end users)?

Certifications

How qualified are the engineers you’re trusting with your most prized assets? What specific certifications do they hold?

Technology

Are critical services built on dedicated technology? Does the provider offer all the value-added services you need (see the Getting Started section)? Do they have strong relationships with the leading technology vendors?

Reach

Can they provide engineering presence and the right level of coverage you need?

Data Centre

Does the provider’s cloud platform fulfil all required certifications? Are their data centres highly reliable and available?

Why Choose Creative ITC

Creative ITC have created VDIPOD which is an unmatched software. AEC companies can collaborate at scale in new ways: internally with clients, with external partners and across the supply chain.

With a full integration user authentication is simplified, our VDI also preserves your connections and security posture for web and content filtering as well as protecting data environments. Get in touch for more information.