E-GUIDE

The Digital Transformation

Advantage.
Why connectivity is the foundation for digital success.
What is Digital Transformation?
Digital transformation isn’t just another enterprise
technology trend—it’s a whole new way of solving
problems that have plagued businesses for decades.
Those that are embracing and driving digital
transformation are solving their challenges faster and
gaining a whole host of capabilities that set them apart
from their competitors.

Digital transformation is big business. IDC predicts that

total spending on digital transformation technologies
in 2018 will top $1.3 trillion1, and over 40 percent2
of companies report having a dedicated digital
transformation team in place.

There are various motivations for undergoing digital

transformation, but usually, organisations consider this
strategy for one or more of the following reasons:

To help meet the expectations Streamlining internal Improving their bottom line
of an increasingly digital day-to-day activities using with cost and time savings
customer base by transforming new tools and capabilities such by reducing the volume of
customer-facing systems and as automation to free up vital resources needed to maintain
applications to deliver a higher business resources optimal operations
standard of digital experience

Enabling rapid scalability across  Generating revenue Creating a digital-first culture

global markets by switching to opportunities through product that people love where everyone
digital operations that are naturally innovation and data-driven is empowered with the tools they
easier to scale and duplicate customer engagement need to achieve their goals and do
across multiple global markets their best work

Megaport: The Digital Transformation Advantage

There’s no transformation without connectivity
In the vast majority of its forms, digital transformation is all about connections. Whether that’s connecting your
organisation to powerful new services and tools in the cloud, connecting existing systems to enable data-driven
innovation, or connecting multiple public cloud and private cloud services for seamless interoperability, the strength
of your connectivity plays a critical role in the digital transformation process.

Increasingly, companies’ digital transformation projects and strategies are becoming highly multifaceted –
incorporating services from an array of providers. This includes cloud, Software as a Service (SaaS), data centres
and Managed Service Providers.

When companies look to utilise these services, what they’re effectively doing is building a digital supply chain. In
order to be successful, any type of supply chain must be interconnected well to maintain reliability, speed, security,
and performance. To support that, these multicloud and hybrid cloud environments require a level of connectivity
that cannot be met by best-effort internet services.

What do organisations need connectivity to support

digital transformation?

Effective digital transformation depends on a solid

foundation of connectivity. But, the ways that
connectivity impacts transformation will depend heavily
on exactly what your individual transformation looks like.

Here are some common use cases, with a look at why

connectivity plays such an important part in determining
their value and success.

1
www.itpro.co.uk/digital-transformation/30365/13-trillion-to-be-spent-on-digital-transformation-technologies-in-2018
2
www.futurumresearch.com/futurum-2018-digital-transformation-index/
Megaport: The Digital Transformation Advantage
1
MOVING DATA TO THE PUBLIC CLOUD
When you’re moving business data to the public cloud Secondly, it’s going to impact the security of your data.
for storage, processing, or analysis, your connectivity can Data is often at its most vulnerable while it’s in transit,
have two major impacts on your cloud success. and best-effort internet access doesn’t offer the level of
data security and scalability that today’s organisations
Firstly, it’s going to impact the speed at which you can need when moving data to and from the cloud.
move your data around, and access it within the cloud.
If you’re moving data for the purposes of backup or To successfully move data to the cloud, and gain all of
recovery and need to move huge volumes of information the benefits of cloud-based data management once
into the cloud every day, slow connectivity can have a you’re there, you need connectivity that’s aligned with
massive impact on your recovery time objectives and the needs of your business today, and is able to support
recovery point objectives. your goals for the future.

Traditional connectivity (public, best effort) New connectivity (private, scalable connections)

• Unpredictable performance, and no guaranteed level • Able to deliver a consistently high level of
of connection reliability performance, to ensure your data is always
• Difficult to interact with and manage as your accessible by the people and systems that need it
bandwidth and performance needs change • Scalable to manage large spikes in bandwidth
• Less secure than some private alternatives requirements, such as when you’re moving archived
or backup data to the cloud
• Low-cost, and often already established in many
businesses • Private, more secure, and not exposed to the
vulnerabilities associated with public internet
• Poor control and manageability options for your
connections to ensure your data stays safe in transit
business
• Simple to provision and aligned to your business
• Not designed to support the delivery of business-
needs
critical cloud applications and services

2
USING PUBLIC CLOUD APPLICATIONS TO MODERNISE BUSINESS PROCESSES
The public cloud has given many businesses the That means finding a connectivity option that’s:
opportunity to access powerful tools that previously
ĢĢ Able to reliably deliver high-performance
would have been far out of their reach. From CRM and
connectivity around the clock
ERP platforms, to HR and talent management tools,
there’s a wealth of functionality available to those with ĢĢ Customisable with the ability to prioritise key
the connectivity to fully support it. applications and ensure they always receive the
bandwidth needed to perform highly
For many organisations, connectivity often isn’t top of
their agenda when evaluating public cloud applications ĢĢ Secure, so you can move sensitive data around in
– they simply jump in, acquire the tools they need, and the cloud with confidence
hope for the best. As a response to the need for better connectivity, the top
The trouble is, often these applications become the eight leading cloud providers have developed ‘cloud on-
victims of their own success. Their power and simplicity ramp’ products that allow companies to take advantage
see them become widely adopted within organisations, of direct connections to their public cloud service
quickly becoming business critical. infrastructure by utilising a connectivity partner.

Once your business depends on cloud applications,

your connectivity needs to ensure you can access it at
all times, and that it’s constantly available to all of the
people that need it to do their jobs.

Megaport: The Digital Transformation Advantage

3
CREATING A HYBRID CLOUD STRATEGY
It’s taken organisations a long time to find the best way Seek out an option that provides you with:
to apply and get the most from cloud technology.
ĢĢ Deep software-based control over your connectivity,
For years, a great debate raged over whether the
helping to manage and orchestrate your hybrid
functionality and flexibility available in the public cloud
environment your way
outweighed the security and control benefits of private
cloud technology – until architects mastered a way to get ĢĢ The same consistent level of security and
the best of both worlds. performance across public and private cloud
connections
Hybrid cloud strategies that merge the flexibility of public
cloud with the manageability and control offered by ĢĢ The option to connect to multiple cloud providers
private IT infrastructure have become the new normal for as your hybrid environment expands, should you
want to eventually evolve it into a hybrid multicloud
businesses around the world today. But even the most
strategy
well-designed hybrid cloud strategy can fall flat if it’s not
supported and enabled by the right connectivity. ĢĢ Extensive reach to data centres and locations
globally where private IT infrastructure resides
When evaluating connectivity options for your hybrid
cloud plans, one of the biggest things you need to
consider and look out for is control. Ultimately, you need
to be able to engineer similar network models for your
public and private cloud footprints, which requires deep
control of your connectivity to manage and optimise
workloads across the two.

4
CREATING A MULTICLOUD STRATEGY
Moving a step beyond today’s standard hybrid cloud To successfully execute a multicloud strategy, you need
strategies, the multicloud approach uses cloud services to start with connectivity that’s:
from multiple cloud providers and blends them to create
ĢĢ As open and flexible as the public internet
the ideal suite of capabilities. The benefits are clear—
your organisation ultimately gets exactly what it needs— ĢĢ As fast and secure as a dedicated direct cloud
but to work effectively, multicloud is dependent on the provider connection
performance and flexibility of your connectivity. And,
ĢĢ As manageable as your own custom-built network
within a multicloud environment, applications delivered
by various cloud providers often need the ability to ĢĢ Able to move data between cloud providers simply
exchange data with one another. and efficiently

When it comes to connectivity, many traditional ĢĢ Capable of delivering virtual networking functions to
approaches can seriously limit (or entirely prevent) empower advanced data routing quickly and easily
multicloud strategies. For example, if you’ve chosen to
connect directly to a specific cloud provider, it may be
difficult—or at the very least, costly—for you to expand
out and connect to additional services from other vendors
with the same quality of connection. Moreover, managing
the routing necessary to move traffic between providers
is a highly complex and time-consuming discipline.

Megaport: The Digital Transformation Advantage

 Understanding your connectivity options
When planning your digital transformation, and specifically looking at connecting to cloud
providers and their solutions, you have a few main options for connectivity:

Connectivity type Pros Cons

Public Internet • Cost effective and highly accessible • Unpredictable performance

• Difficult to maintain a high level of security

Direct cloud provider • A very fast, secure, and reliable • Requires managing a separate connection
connection connection to your chosen cloud partner to each cloud provider
• Can carry high setup costs
• Difficult and costly to provision
• Need to be within reach of an on-ramp to
your chosen cloud

SDN-based Private • Integrates with direct cloud provider • Some providers don’t have a truly global
direct connection connections to provide these benefits reach to enable global connectivity
but has the ability to connect to multiple
clouds on one platform
• On-demand and pay-as-you-go

Tackling the challenges of tomorrow with better connectivity

Regardless of your initial use case, flexible, dedicated connectivity can help solve many of the biggest challenges
IT teams and network architects are going to face in the near future.

With a vendor-neutral, software-defined connectivity foundation, your organisation will be equipped to:

1 Handle surges in traffic and 2 Make the most of everything 3 Harness the power of cloud-
demand for essential cloud the cloud has to offer as native development, and
applications, or services vendors broaden and deliver a stable and reliable
you’ve deployed in your deepen their offerings foundation for collaborative,
hybrid cloud environment cloud-based dev and test

4 Provision new cloud

5 Accelerate backup and
connections extremely quickly, recovery processes as the
as you need new capabilities volumes of data you process
or build new integrations become exponentially larger

Megaport: The Digital Transformation Advantage

CASE STUDY – ZUELLIG PHARMA

Zuellig Pharma uses connectivity to underpin a successful digital transformation

strategy and make healthcare more accessible across Asia

Zuellig Pharma is one of the largest healthcare services groups in Asia. They
provide world-class distribution, digital, and commercial services to support
the growing healthcare needs in this region.

Recently, the company made a major commitment to digital transformation

within the healthcare sector, launching its own dedicated health solutions innovation center. The center was
established to drive transformation in how patients manage their conditions, but to do that effectively, Zuellig
Pharma first needed to undertake some significant digital transformations of its own.

Story Snapshot
‹‹ Undertook a digital transformation and expansion initiative to propel their company into the digital age
‹‹ Migrated a full 40-system SAP production landscape with a 65TB footprint to Azure-hosted environment
and ran next-generation applications on AWS through Megaport connectivity
‹‹ Reduced ETL extracts for Analytics workloads by more than 150%
‹‹ Cut latency for real-time analytics by more than 75%
‹‹ Reduced the cutover timings for core SAP migration to Azure by 30%

The company devised a digital transformation strategy encompassing an

enterprise-wide multi-tiered digital expansion and transformation plan
which includes a ‘front-end’ integrated ecosystem of new digital solutions.
Our digital transformation
strategy, underpinned by
Practically, that meant creating an intelligent hybrid and multicloud
architecture using an ecosystem of diverse applications that digitised
Megaport connectivity,
day-to-day business processes and operations. has propelled Zuellig
For that to be successful, Zuellig Pharma needed a robust and flexible
Pharma’s sales force
connectivity foundation. The company needed connectivity that would into the digital age
enable it to both connect to diverse cloud services from multiple cloud through real-time data
providers, and enable fluid data exchange between those services and a
access on the go which
growing number of digital endpoints.
has increased decision-
Megaport’s Network as a Service solution was a key enabler to these making autonomy and
objectives, making Zuellig Pharma’s early cloud strategy a possibility with
easy, efficient, and right-scaled connections enabling the company to boosted our competitive
move data whenever and wherever they need. edge on the ground.
Plus, by using Megaport’s flexible SDN, the Company enabled super-speed
– CIO, Maikel Kuijpers Zuellig Pharma
interactions between its expanded ecosystem of applications and service
– ensuring the fast and reliable delivery of innovative healthcare services
for people across Asia.

Megaport: The Digital Transformation Advantage

Discover the power of flexible, dedicated connectivity
Connectivity is extremely important—but that doesn’t mean it needs to be complex.
Whatever your requirements, Megaport makes connectivity easy.

Megaport provides truly cloud provider agnostic connectivity for the cloud era. Whatever
you want to connect to, and however you want to do it, we can support you and help
bring your digital transformation plans to life.

If you’re planning your own digital transformation and want some expert advice on
connectivity, or if you’re just interested in learning more about Megaport’s flexible,
dedicated connectivity approach, visit megaport.com or contact us today.

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We make connectivity easy

Megaport is the highly scaled Network as a Service (NaaS) organisation utilising 100 Gbps technology to deliver dedicated
access to cloud services. The Company’s Software Defined Network (SDN) enables the interconnection of enterprises
and service providers across hundreds of data centre locations around the globe. Fast, flexible, and dynamic, Megaport’s
connectivity solution is transforming the way businesses reach leading cloud services from Microsoft, Google, Oracle,
Amazon Web Services, Nutanix, IBM, Salesforce, and Alibaba.

megaport.com Phone: +61 7 3088 5999 Level 4, 825 Ann St,

[email protected] Fax: +61 7 3088 5998 Fortitude Valley, 4006, AU. ABN: 46 607 301 959

@megaportnetwork @megaport #GETAMEGAPORT