What is IaaS

IaaS is a cloud computing service model that allows businesses to lease IT infrastructure from a third-party provider. This infrastructure can include virtual machines, storage, networks, and other computing resources. IaaS providers typically offer a pay-as-you-go pricing model, allowing businesses to scale their infrastructure up or down as needed without significant upfront costs.

How does IaaS work?

IaaS providers own and maintain the hardware and software infrastructure necessary to provide computing resources to businesses. This infrastructure includes data centers, where providers house and maintain servers, storage, and networking equipment. Businesses can access these resources remotely through the internet, paying for only what they use.

To use IaaS, businesses first need to select a provider that offers the resources they need. Once they have selected a provider, they can create and manage virtual machines, networks, and storage through a web-based interface or application programming interface (API). Businesses can then install their own software and applications on the virtual machines they have created, effectively creating a virtual data center.

Benefits of IaaS

There are several benefits to using IaaS for businesses:

  1. Cost savings: IaaS allows businesses to avoid the capital expense of purchasing and maintaining their own infrastructure. Instead, they can pay for only what they use on a pay-as-you-go basis.
  2. Scalability: IaaS providers can quickly scale computing resources up or down based on business needs. This allows businesses to easily accommodate growth or changing demand without significant upfront costs.
  3. Accessibility: With IaaS, businesses can access their computing resources from anywhere with an internet connection. This can be particularly helpful for remote teams or those with geographically dispersed offices.
  4. Security: IaaS providers typically have robust security measures in place, including firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and data encryption. This can help businesses protect their sensitive data and avoid security breaches.
  5. Reliability: IaaS providers typically have redundant systems in place to ensure that computing resources are always available. This can help businesses avoid downtime and lost productivity.

Challenges of IaaS

While there are many benefits to using IaaS, there are also several challenges that businesses should be aware of:

  1. Dependence on the provider: Because businesses rely on IaaS providers to maintain their infrastructure, they are dependent on the provider for reliability and security. If the provider experiences downtime or a security breach, it can significantly impact business operations.
  2. Data ownership and privacy: Businesses must be careful to ensure that their data is properly secured and that they retain ownership of their data when using IaaS. They must also ensure that the provider complies with any regulatory requirements for data privacy and security.
  3. Limited customization: While businesses can install their own software and applications on virtual machines, they may be limited in terms of customizing the underlying infrastructure. This can limit the ability to optimize computing resources for specific workloads.

Conclusion

IaaS is a valuable service model that allows businesses to access the computing resources they need without significant upfront costs. By outsourcing infrastructure needs to a third-party provider, businesses can achieve cost savings, scalability, accessibility, security, and reliability. However, it is important for businesses to be aware of the challenges associated with IaaS, including dependence on the provider, data ownership and privacy, and limited customization. With careful planning and management, businesses can use IaaS to effectively support their IT infrastructure needs.

Evocative Ranks No. 109 On Inc. Magazine’s List Of Pacific Region’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies

Evocative is thrilled to announce that we have been named No. 109 on Inc. Magazine's annual Inc. 5000 Regionals: Pacific list. This prestigious ranking recognizes the fastest-growing Pacific-based private companies, and we are honored to be among them.

Born of the annual Inc. 5000 franchise, this regional list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the Pacific's economy’s most dynamic segment—its independent small businesses. The list reflects the impressive growth and success of the region we are excited to be among the top-performing companies driving the region's economy forward.

According to the list, we achieved a remarkable 153% growth over a 2-year period, which is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our team. We are proud to provide innovative and reliable data center solutions to our customers, and this recognition motivates us to continue pushing the boundaries of excellence.

Being listed on the Inc. 5000 Regionals: Pacific list is a significant milestone for us, and we want to thank Inc. Magazine for the recognition. We also want to congratulate all the other companies on the list for their outstanding achievements.

DAL6 Lobby

We encourage everyone to check out the list on Inc. Magazine's website and learn more about the top-performing independent small businesses driving the Pacific Region's economy forward. Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to further growth and success in the future.

VP, Global Marketing Renée Lawrence Named Advisor at the Nomad Futurist Foundation

We are very happy to announce that Renée Lawrence, Evocative’s Vice President, Global Marketing, has joined the advisory team at the Nomad Futurist Foundation. The Nomad Futurist Foundation was founded in 2021 by Nabeel Mahmood and Phillip Koblence, and builds upon the Nomad Futurist Podcast which hosts informative discussions to bridge an understanding of the complicated IT industry with people interested in careers in technology. Donations to the foundation provide funding to create events, educational programs, and other initiatives for both adults and children.

Evocative is a sponsor of the Nomad Futurist Foundation. “Evocative is committed to community and believes strongly in giving back through a variety of causes," said Lawrence. "I’m very excited to join the team at the Nomad Futurist Foundation to share their mission of providing education services and support for the next generations of technologists. I’m looking forward to working with the team on programs to open new doors to career opportunities and growth.”  

Lawrence is a technology executive with extensive experience in data center operations, IT infrastructure technologies, managed services, product management and marketing and global channel development. Prior to joining Evocative, she held senior management roles at EMC Corporation, VCE, Savvis (now Lumen), Ingram Micro, Exodus Communications and GlobalCenter.

"Evocative’s strong beliefs and dedication to their core values aligns with our mission to identify and nurture future leaders in the infrastructure space,” adds Nabeel Mahmood, Co-Founder of the Nomad Futurist Foundation. “We’re excited to have Renée join the team. Her expertise and experience in the industry will be invaluable to the Foundation as we build our educational programs for the younger generation. We can’t wait to work together!”

Evocative Recognized on CRN’s 2023 MSP 500 List for Eighth Consecutive Year

We are excited to announce that CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company, has named Evocative to its Managed Service Provider (MSP) 500 list in the Elite 150 category for 2023. CRN’s annual MSP 500 list recognizes the top technology providers whose forward-thinking approaches to managed services are changing the landscape of the IT channel, helping end users increase efficiency and simplify IT solutions, while maximizing their return on investment.

“It is an honor to once again be recognized as a distinguished managed services provider by CRN,” said Derek Garnier, CEO of Evocative. “In today’s business environment, many leaders are challenged to maintain IT infrastructure with the latest technology but often do not have the resources and personnel to accomplish this goal. With infrastructure operations as a core tenet of our business, Evocative has developed a full suite of services to meet the rapidly developing needs of our industry.”

Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Evocative operates 20 carrier-neutral Tier II and Tier III data centers in the United States and maintains global Points of Presence (PoPs). Evocative’s portfolio of digital infrastructure solutions includes Managed Network, Managed Servers, and Managed Security, providing enterprise customers with 24x7 IT monitoring and management.

Garnier, recently appointed as CEO at Evocative, sees the Hybrid Cloud and IT staffing challenges as influencers for change in 2023, which will present opportunities for service providers such as Evocative. With businesses continuing to contemplate whether to keep workers at home or have them return to in-person offices, demand for a transition to the Hybrid Cloud model and other cybersecurity needs will continue to increase. Additionally, businesses will likely continue outsourcing IT staffing to service providers. Evocative optimally staffs its facilities with 24x7x365 service teams to ensure that every service request is handled timely and efficiently.

Evocative Appoints Derek Garnier as Chief Executive Officer

Los Angeles, CA, February 27, 2023 - Evocative, a global provider of Internet infrastructure, announces the appointment of Derek Garnier as Chief Executive Officer. Garnier is a digital infrastructure strategist and operator with more than 35 years of experience. Garnier succeeds founder Arman Khalili, who will continue to serve on Evocative’s Board of Directors.

In his most recent role as President & Chief Operating Officer, Garnier provided strategic direction and operational execution for Evocative’s global sales, marketing, engineering, and operations teams, bringing decades of expertise to the company’s continued growth strategy and enhancing its geographic expansion, service offerings and client experience initiatives.

“Derek has proven himself as a capable leader and the obvious successor during his tenure at Evocative,” said Evocative Board Member, Will Palmer. “His proven track record in the industry combined with his executive leadership experience will no doubt continue Evocative’s momentum as our new CEO.”

Garnier has experience creating and executing strategic plans as well as leading multidisciplinary, cross-functional teams during high growth phases for leading providers. His multifaceted career has also included global advisory services within the digital infrastructure space to some of the world’s largest investment firms and multinational customers.

“I could not be more honored to lead this company,” said Garnier. “Evocative has grown in a very short time from a regional data center provider with two locations to a global data center, network, and cloud provider with over twenty locations. I look forward to leading our amazing team as we expand our footprint and service offerings to better serve our customers.”

“I am privileged to have founded and led Evocative through its first five years,” said Khalili. “I have no doubt that Derek will continue to grow the company through its next stage and beyond.”

What is Hybrid Cloud

Hybrid cloud is a cloud computing model that combines the benefits of public cloud and private cloud services. It provides the flexibility of public cloud services and the security and control of private cloud services. In a hybrid cloud environment, an organization uses a combination of on-premises and cloud-based services from multiple vendors to meet its specific IT needs.

Hybrid cloud allows organizations to optimize their IT infrastructure by using a mix of cloud services to meet their needs. For example, an organization can use public cloud services for non-critical workloads and private cloud services for mission-critical workloads that require more control and security.

How are Hybrid Cloud Solutions Utilized?

Hybrid cloud solutions are utilized by businesses that require the flexibility and scalability of the public cloud for some workloads, while maintaining control and security over other workloads that are hosted on a private cloud.

For example, a company may use a private cloud to host its most critical applications and data, while using a public cloud for less sensitive workloads such as testing and development.

By using a hybrid cloud solution, businesses can optimize their IT infrastructure to meet their specific needs while minimizing costs and ensuring the highest level of security for their data. Here are some of the most common ways organizations use hybrid cloud solutions:

Bursting: Organizations use public cloud services to scale their IT infrastructure during peak demand periods. For example, during Black Friday sales, an e-commerce website can use public cloud services to handle the increased traffic.

Backup and Disaster Recovery: Organizations use cloud-based backup and disaster recovery services to protect their critical data and applications. In the event of a disaster, the organization can quickly restore their services using cloud-based backup and disaster recovery services.

Data Analytics: Organizations use cloud-based data analytics services to analyze large amounts of data quickly and cost-effectively. For example, a healthcare organization can use cloud-based data analytics services to analyze patient data and identify trends.

DevOps: Organizations use cloud-based DevOps services to accelerate software development and deployment. For example, a software development company can use cloud-based DevOps services to build and test their applications quickly.

What are the Benefits of Hybrid Cloud?

There are several benefits to using a hybrid cloud architecture, including:

Cost Optimization: By using a combination of public and private cloud resources, businesses can optimize their IT spend to match their specific needs. This allows companies to reduce costs while ensuring that their most critical workloads are hosted on a secure and reliable private cloud.

Scalability: Hybrid cloud solutions allow businesses to scale their infrastructure up or down quickly to meet changing demands. This allows companies to respond quickly to changes in their business environment and avoid costly downtime.

Flexibility: With a hybrid cloud architecture, businesses can choose the cloud services that best meet their needs. This allows companies to take advantage of the latest cloud technologies while maintaining control over their most critical workloads.

Security: By using a private cloud for sensitive workloads, businesses can ensure the highest level of security for their data. Hybrid cloud architectures also provide advanced security features such as encryption, multi-factor authentication, and network segmentation.

What are the Challenges of Hybrid Cloud?

While there are many benefits to using a hybrid cloud architecture, there are also several challenges that businesses need to be aware of, including:

Complexity: Hybrid cloud architectures can be complex to set up and manage. Companies may need to invest in additional IT resources or partner with a third-party provider to ensure that their hybrid cloud is configured correctly and operating smoothly.

Integration: Businesses must ensure that their public and private cloud environments are seamlessly integrated to avoid performance issues and data security risks.

Compliance: Hybrid cloud solutions must comply with industry regulations and standards, such as HIPAA and GDPR. Companies must ensure that their hybrid cloud solution meets these requirements to avoid legal and financial penalties.

Security: Hybrid cloud introduces new security risks. Organizations need to ensure that their data and applications are secure across multiple cloud environments.

How to Leverage Hybrid Cloud to Support Business Objectives

Leveraging hybrid cloud can help businesses to meet their specific needs and optimize their operations. Here are some best practices for leveraging hybrid cloud to support business needs:

Determine the right mix of public and private cloud resources: Businesses should analyze their workloads to determine which applications and data are best suited for public cloud and which are best kept on-premises or in a private cloud. This will help to ensure that the right resources are deployed in the right locations to meet business needs.

Build a strong network infrastructure: To support a hybrid cloud deployment, businesses need a strong and reliable network infrastructure. This includes high-speed internet connectivity, WAN optimization, and software-defined networking (SDN) to manage traffic flows between public and private clouds.

Adopt a cloud management platform: Managing a hybrid cloud deployment can be complex, so businesses should adopt a cloud management platform that can provide a unified view of all cloud resources. This will help to simplify management and improve visibility into performance and costs.

Ensure data security and compliance: With hybrid cloud, businesses need to ensure that data is secure and compliant with relevant regulations. This can be achieved through encryption, access controls, and data loss prevention (DLP) tools.

Implement a disaster recovery plan: Businesses should have a disaster recovery plan in place that covers both public and private cloud resources. This should include regular backups, failover procedures, and testing to ensure that the plan is effective.

Optimize costs: Hybrid cloud can be cost-effective, but only if resources are deployed and managed efficiently. Businesses should use automation tools to optimize resource allocation and minimize waste.

Best Practices for Building a Hybrid Cloud Solution

Setting up a hybrid cloud involves integrating a private cloud and a public cloud to work together seamlessly, providing greater flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. Here are some general steps to set up a hybrid cloud:

  1. Assess your needs: Determine what applications and data you want to keep in your private cloud, and what you want to move to the public cloud. Identify the requirements for security, performance, and compliance.
  2. Choose a cloud provider: Select a public cloud provider that meets your requirements and provides the necessary tools and services to integrate with your private cloud.
  3. Connect your clouds: Establish a secure and reliable connection between your private cloud and the public cloud. This can be achieved using a VPN, dedicated connection, or other options.
  4. Manage your cloud resources: Use cloud management tools to manage your hybrid cloud resources. This includes monitoring, automating, and optimizing your cloud infrastructure to ensure optimal performance and cost-effectiveness.
  5. Ensure security and compliance: Implement security measures to protect your data and applications in the hybrid cloud. This includes access control, encryption, and compliance with regulatory requirements.
  6. Train your staff: Provide training to your IT staff to ensure they have the necessary skills and knowledge to manage the hybrid cloud effectively.

Setting up a hybrid cloud requires careful planning, integration, and ongoing management. Consider seeking the assistance of a cloud service provider or consulting firm to help you with the process.

Evocative: Delivering Full Suite Colocation for Hybrid Cloud

As a global infrastructure provider, Evocative helps businesses execute on hybrid cloud strategies with high-performance colocation, network, bare metal, cloud, and managed services, providing a secure platform and a global network presence to help you embrace modern application architectures. With 20 edge data centers and 34 global points of presence, flexible IT deployment and management options, and carrier-neutral network access, our colocation solutions are purpose-built to help you power the demanding workloads of tomorrow.

With Evocative, you can seamlessly connect to your customers, speed up the launch of your services, and scale with agility to deliver world-class experience every single time. More than 7,000 clients have trusted Evocative for their IT services with many having recommended us to their peers.

Evocative Named Top 10 Colocation Provider

As an industry-leading global infrastructure and colocation services provider, Evocative is thrilled to be listed as one of the top 10 colocation providers of 2023 by Datacenters.com. We take great pride in our commitment to delivering top-quality services to our clients, and we're thrilled to be recognized for our efforts.

Our focus has always been on building and maintaining reliable and secure data centers that meet the unique needs of our clients. We've invested heavily in state-of-the-art technology, security systems, and infrastructure to ensure that our data centers provide our clients with the peace of mind they need to focus on their core business.

At Evocative, we understand that no two clients are alike, which is why we take a tailored approach to our services. We work closely with our clients to understand their unique needs, and we offer a wide range of services that can be customized to meet those needs. From colocation to managed services and hybrid cloud solutions, we have the expertise and experience to deliver the right solution for any business.

One of our key strengths is our team of experts, who are passionate about delivering exceptional service to our clients. We take the time to listen to our clients, understand their challenges, and work collaboratively to find the right solution. Our team has years of experience in the industry, and they're always up-to-date with the latest trends and technologies.

Being recognized as one of the top 10 colocation providers of 2023 by Datacenters.com is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our team. We're proud to be listed alongside other industry leaders, and we're committed to continuing to deliver exceptional services to our clients in the years to come. If you're looking for a reliable, secure, and tailored colocation solution, we invite you to contact us to learn more about how we can help your business succeed.

About Evocative

Evocative is a global leader in Internet infrastructure, providing enterprise-class data center, bare metal, network, cloud, and managed services solutions that enable exceptional digital experiences. Our global footprint includes interconnected data centers and points of presence across strategically located metros in North America, Europe, and Asia regions.

Our data center presence spans Boston, New York, New Jersey, Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley and Seattle with 20 colocation facilities. In addition to colocation services, Evocative provides a full suite of cloud-to-edge infrastructure solutions that power enterprise workloads at the edge. Evocative is dedicated to helping drive digital businesses forward, now and in the decades to come.

Top 4 Strategies for Avoiding Cloud Vendor Lock-In

As today’s organizations become increasingly digital, leveraging the cloud only becomes more important. Public cloud platforms offer a wide variety of benefits, including greater flexibility, the ability to scale up-and-down, and more.

However, companies must be cautious in their cloud approach to avoid the dangers of lock-in. Vendor lock-in occurs when a customer becomes overly reliant on a specific vendor for a product or service, making it challenging and costly to switch to a different vendor.

Cloud vendor lock-in commonly happens when service providers make it easy for businesses to migrate to their public cloud but not to switch to a different cloud provider. Vendors often use tactics such as steep egress charges or obscure contract terms and fine print to lock customers into their services, even if they are no longer beneficial for the business. This can limit a company's options and negatively impact its success.

Vendor Lock-In

When approaching the issue of cloud vendor lock-in, companies should seek to capitalize on the benefits of the cloud to achieve digital success, while maintaining maximum flexibility, control over their data, and avoidance of costly long-term commitments. In this article, we’ll dive into our Top 4 Strategies for Avoiding Cloud Vendor Lock-In.

1. Maintain Governance Over Your Sensitive Data

It is essential to prioritize maintaining control and ownership of your company's data and insights when partnering with a vendor. To safeguard sensitive information, such as consumer data, it is advisable to store it in a secure location like a private cloud, colocation facility, or on-premises data center.

Additionally, when working with a cloud vendor, it is crucial to understand their data storage and management policies. Vendors can lock you in by storing your data in proprietary formats, making it difficult or even impossible to extract your data in the future. To prevent this from happening, you’ll want to utilize a standardized format for your data. This will provide you with the flexibility to switch vendors, if necessary, without the added burden of converting your data.

2. Enable Portable Applications

Your business could face a vendor lock-in scenario if the primary function of the enterprise application it creates is highly dependent on a specific platform. This scenario can be avoided with the use of containers.

Containers enable your data and applications to be portable so you can leverage a wide variety of operating systems and platforms without requiring major structural changes to the underlying code. By leveraging this architecture, your data and applications can move seamlessly between public clouds, private clouds, colocation facilities, bare-metal systems, and on-premises environments with minimal switching costs and no need for migrating or translating data.

Learn more about the best practices for creating a container-based architecture in our latest eBook.

3. Leverage Multi-Cloud Environments

A multi-cloud strategy involves utilizing two or more public cloud environments from different vendors, allowing for the movement of portable workloads between them.

Though it may require additional measures to balance risk, performance, and cost, a multi-cloud approach can be a highly effective solution for avoiding vendor lock-in. By leveraging clouds from multiple providers at the same time strategies, businesses can avoid the cloud lock-in risks associated with data loss, decreased profitability, and more.

An enterprise-class elastic SDN solution, such as Evocative’s CloudHop™ can enable companies to provision connections between multiple cloud environments cost-efficiently. With this service, you quickly dial bandwidth up or down on demand, by leveraging a direct connection that bypasses the public Internet. Because this connection is private, the same egress costs that can lock companies into one cloud vendor are avoided. Moreover, companies only pay for the bandwidth they use.

Cloud Hop Diagram

4. Maintain On-Premises or Collocated Backup Copies

Maintaining on-prem or collocated backups can be especially beneficial if the process of extracting data from a cloud vendor to move to another cloud vendor becomes too challenging or time-consuming. With backed up data available, businesses can quickly host their data elsewhere if they need to change cloud providers or if they encounter issues with the current provider.

As an added benefit, having backups of all data supports business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) and provides an extra layer of protection against ransomware attacks.

Avoiding Cloud Vendor Lock-In: How Colocation Can Help

While the cloud provides countless benefits, cloud vendor lock-in should be avoided at all costs.

At Evocative, we understand the importance of having control over your data, which is why our full suite of colocation, network, bare metal, cloud, and managed services ensures that your data remains completely portable across any environment. 

Our secure, compliant, and open architecture gives you the freedom to move your data seamlessly between hybrid and multi-cloud environments. We prioritize transparency with no hidden fees or charges, making your outbound data transfers cost-efficient to meet the changing needs of your business.

Our colocation, bare metal, and private cloud services enable greater control over your physical security for the handling of your sensitive data. Our colocation services allow you to retain control over your own hardware and equipment, ensuring that you’re never locked into a particular hardware vendor’s offering. And our CloudHop™ services empower your multi-cloud strategies to avoid cloud vendor lock-in while lowering egress costs.

At Evocative, you can rely on us to keep your data safe. We’re dedicated to providing exceptional service and solutions to help you retain control over your data and harness its full potential.

Navigating the Journey to Hybrid Cloud: Advantages of Colocation Data Centers

With 89% of organizations already using two or more public cloud infrastructure providers, the demand for a hybrid cloud environment is increasing.

The journey to a hybrid cloud environment can be challenging, but colocated data centers can help companies drive cost efficiencies and improve security.

The whitepaper explores:

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What is an Edge Data Center?

Edge data centers are a type of data center infrastructure that is positioned at the edge of the network, closer to end-users and devices. This type of infrastructure offers many benefits for businesses, particularly those that require low latency, high bandwidth, and high-speed data processing capabilities. In this article, we will explore what an edge data center is, why you should care, the characteristics, types, and the current trends that are driving growth.  

Edge Data Centers Defined

Edge data centers are designed to be positioned at the edge of the network, near end-users and devices. This is in contrast to traditional data centers, which are often located in centralized locations and connected to end-users and devices through a network. 

Edge data centers are designed to bring data processing, storage, and networking capabilities closer to the devices and users that need them, reducing latency and increasing the speed of data processing.

Edge Data Center Computing

Why Move To An Edge Data Center?

There are many reasons why an organization might move resources to an edge data center. One of the main reasons is to reduce latency, or the time it takes for data to travel from a device to a data center and back. This is particularly important for applications and services that require low latency, such as real-time gaming, virtual reality, and autonomous vehicles.

Another reason organizations are moving to an edge data center is to increase the speed and efficiency of data processing. Edge data centers are designed to bring data processing, storage, and networking capabilities closer to the devices and users that need them, which can help to reduce the time it takes to process and analyze data. This can be particularly important for businesses and organizations that require fast data processing, such as financial services companies, healthcare organizations, and government agencies.

Characteristics Of Edge Data Centers

Edge data centers are characterized by several key features, including:

Overall, edge data centers are designed to provide a fast, secure, and efficient data processing environment that can support the growing demands of next-generation applications that require low-latency processing.

Types Of Edge Data Centers

There are several different types of edge data centers, each designed to meet the specific needs of different types of organizations and applications. Two of the most common types of edge data centers include:

Edge Data Center

What Are The Trends Driving Edge Data Center Growth?

The growth of edge data centers is driven by several key trends in the technology industry, including:

In summary, the growing demand for low latency, high-speed data processing, and the increasing number of connected devices are driving the growth of edge data centers. As these trends continue to evolve, we can expect to see continued growth in the use of edge data centers.

How Can Evocative Help?

Leveraging our data center facilities for cloud, colocation, interconnectivity, or managed services means you can access our large global footprint across a network of 28 interconnected data centers with 46 points of presence. Our data centers are carrier and cloud-neutral, with several top-tier network providers in 28 strategically located global edge markets. Leveraging our global network backbone, you can minimize latency and speed up data transfer around the globe.