WHAT’S IN-STORE FOR MY CLOUD?

In 2009 @infoworld Editor in Chief @EricKnorr published an article about the big 5 questions of what cloud was, and the general summation was “a subscription-based or pay-per-user service that, in real time over the Internet, extends IT’s capabilities.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/2628968/cloud-computing/five-big-questions-about-cloud-computing.html

The reality is that Cloud is still exactly that, and will remain true; the colour, texture, shape and value created are the things that are changing in what now, can be delivered with Cloud. In my opinion Cloud is at a stage we could call Cloud v1.0 where we are using cloud to extend IT’s capabilities with some business value arising for the normal SME. Of course certain organisations and specific sectors are making massive revenues and profits however these are a very small percentage overall and I am not focusing on these players.

There are of course still lots of challenges with data protection, privacy, security boundaries and processes, while still allowing access to the masses or your specific customers. These areas are just 2 of your top 10 considerations that form part of your strategy and should be embraced as part of the journey rather than avoided due to fear and cost. These considerations are fundamental for any organisations migration to utilising Cloud services, whether they are on-prem, hybrid and/or public service clouds.

The journey for many organisations will be relatively easy if they commit at the top and make it happen until all employees embrace the new delivery models and push to improve them to draw more business value from them. Some key objectives to achieve from an IT perspective are speed to market, scale out/in – up/down – on-prem/hybrid/public and bursting between them, as well as containerisation. The business objectives are speed to market, lower barriers/costs to entry and of course a more transparent and fluid exchange with IT to deliver to the business needs and objectives.

With all that said you still have to support your legacy applications and platforms while delivering at speed in the new world of Cloud, DevOps and Big Data for Analytics. Cloud is at that stage where you can consume the services quickly and easily without too much disruption to the legacy environments, and still use the data contained within them to roll out new business services.

Please contact me if you would like to discuss any of these points marketing@viadex.com