Jobey Thomas, Practice Manager – Microsoft, at Emitac has penned an exclusive op-ed for October’s edition of CNME which takes a deeper look at the trends emerging from enterprises migrating to the cloud.
Leaders in IT Infrastructure and Operations learn each day. What we have learned from our experience with cloud adopters to mitigate cloud risks, speed up adoption and reduce costs to obtain better ROI.
The cloud has reached majority adoption. However, many infrastructure and operations leaders are still asking questions as they pilot their cloud journey such as:
What are the advantages and risks of utilising the cloud?
What are best practices for managing and governing cloud resources?
How to organise your IT team to embrace the cloud?
These are significant questions pondering not only for the enterprises, but also those who are working to modernise and optimise their cloud deployments.
IT Leaders responsible for cloud infrastructure can take advantage from the matured cloud by implementing lessons learned from our previous adopters to ease risks, speed adoption, reduce cost and enhance ROI.
Planning for a Cloud Strategy across the organisation
Each department has its own way of initiating Cloud Strategies, leading the organisation to have a multi-cloud environment. The challenge comes when the initiated cloud strategies are not aligned with the enterprise business goals. This also prevents cloud computing from impacting the overall business strategy positively.
Business needs to start with a cloud strategy document that defines a guideline for the entire organisation, aligning the business objectives, advantages, risks and key adoption criteria. Bringing in this document in place many delays are prevented that are caused by misaligned priorities. The document will be updated as organisations’ goals evolve, marketing by vendors, business factors.
Identifying the right cloud service provider and the right cloud aspirant workloads
Two key areas of focus ae:
Identifying the best aspirant workload to migrate to the cloud
Selection of the right Cloud Service Provider (CSP) for these workloads
IT Leaders must go through a complete assessment that evaluates both technical feasibility and business value for the application that are ready for the cloud.
Since most organisations migrate applications and workloads to cloud based entirely on a short set of technical criteria, this needs to be thoroughly evaluated and actioned.
Likewise, the selection of a Public Cloud Provider must not be based solely on technical capabilities, but leaders must consider the location and business factors.
The best example is how many are relying on local Cloud Service Providers – CSP’s (Emitac Cloud) when Public Cloud regions don’t deliver the appropriate level of cloud performance, service and even cost! Similarly, vice-versa in Public CSP, the price and quality of cloud services differ across locations.
A Cloud Center of Excellence and a Cloud Architect
Cloud Center of Excellence – CCOE is a function that creates a balance between stability and speed. This function governs and manages different stages of cloud adoption roadmap.
One of the mistakes that commonly made by organisations is the delay in establishing CCOE. The model requires collaboration between each of the below:
Cloud Governance: Selecting the right governance tools and creating cloud computing policies.
Cloud Adoption: A Strategic move by organisations of reducing cost and easing risks and achieving scalability of data.
Cloud Platform: Help users select the right cloud providers as a platform.
Cloud Strategy/Cloud Automation
Each member of the CCOE is equipped with understanding the necessary constraints, risks, and protections that led to the current set of IT controls.
The CCOE must include a cloud solution architect, who is responsible for defining the cloud strategy and interacting with key stakeholders. The ideal candidate for this role is a well-respected individual from within the organisation who has access to the business leaders, takes initiatives and mandatorily a “cloud believer.”
This person must also have technical cloud skills and experience in cloud adoption projects.
Enterprise Cloud Managed Services Provider
A common drawback by most organisations initiating their cloud journey is that they believe their current on-premises management and governance are also valid for cloud resources! CSP’s, like Emitac, provide integration with new resources and tools that are fundamental and required to manage a multi-cloud environment for enterprise organisations.
This enables customers to wisely choose services, optimise costs and reduce risks. Most companies ignore these tasks and fall in such mistakes, which lead to spend more by 30% to 50% of their cloud cost!
