The Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) says that Sungard Availability Services® (Sungard AS), a leading provider of information availability through cloud, managed IT, and recovery services, has become the latest company to join the industry body’s growing membership roster. By joining CIF, Sungard AS has signalled its commitment to developing a safer, more accountable and more responsible cloud industry.
With over 35 years’ experience in business and technology availability, Sungard AS has a proven track record of success in helping customers manage complex Hybrid IT environments in order to build resiliency and availability to achieve competitive advantage. Today’s CIOs are engaged with creating digitally adept organisations, but often have the challenge of aligning agile and legacy ‘bi-modal IT’ to optimise business outcomes. The right cloud solutions are an integral part of delivering the flexibility, agility and resilience firms need. With 90 strategic locations, offering over 5 million sq.ft. of secure operations space, all connected by a redundant, global dedicated network backbone, Sungard AS has supported major private and public organisations such as Enfield Council, Menzies and Micksgarage.com deploy the cloud to transform their operations.
CIF is a not-for-profit organisation that aims to improve standards and education in the Cloud industry. It provides transparency through certification to a Code of Practice to endorse credible providers of cloud services and, through its Professional CIF Membership scheme, assists end users in determining the core information necessary to enable them to adopt such services with confidence.
Keith Tilley, executive vice president & vice-chair at Sungard Availability Services, said: “Our recent research showed that 98% IT Decision makers regard digital transformation as important for their organisations, which is why businesses of all sizes and sectors have fast turned to cloud services. And they are realising the benefits – from faster customer service (45%) and increased customer satisfaction (44%) through to increases in organisational availability (37%), security (37%) and resilience (29%).Despite these competitive and operational advantages, not all workloads can, or should be moved to the cloud – either due to practical constraints, such as legacy investments, lack of available skills or infrastructure, or even regulatory and security concerns.
“This is where internal IT teams can benefit greatly from the support, expertise and infrastructure of third parties if they are to be successful in their digital transformation efforts, and make sense of their often complex IT estates. We work closely with our customers to assess their requirements and devise and implement cloud migration strategies that will deliver competitive advantage, without compromising resilience, security or availability.
“There remains a significant amount of fear, uncertainty and doubt around cloud; the Cloud Industry Forum plays an important role in shining a light on the most pressing issues facing the industry. Its primary mission of promoting transparency, accountability and capability in the cloud industry is very much aligned with our own long-standing heritage in advocating business good practice. Joining CIF is the latest step in our history of commitment to the cloud and IT industry and we look forward to playing an active role within CIF alongside its other members,” Keith continued.
Alex Hilton, CEO of CIF, commented: “We are delighted to have Sungard AS on board at the Cloud Industry Forum. Our members are integral when it comes to steering the direction we take as an industry body and have continued to drive public confidence and present the best cloud practices, whilst adoption rates have continued to increase. Sungard AS has shown its commitment to the cloud industry and is now a valuable additional voice in the CIF membership roster. Bringing over three decades of experience, Sungard AS was one of the first service providers to acknowledge the reality of hybrid cloud computing and I am confident that we will continue to make great strides together, in creating a better cloud for both end users and providers.”
