Gen-i's Head of Cloud Infrastructure Leanne Buer talks about the advantages of the Pathway to Cloud process which provides clients with a step by step approach to planning their cloud implementation to ensure they get the business outcomes they are looking for.
Watch Leane's presentation here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL0OTTQRqcA
Recorded at the IDC Cloud for Business Conference held in Auckland on Tuesday, 22 March 2011.
3. What are the drivers in my business? What is the end user experience? What services should we outsource? Who are the trusted providers?
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Cloud – where does it fit? Cloud is seen as an enabler of cost and value but it’s a relatively new concept that has multiple definitions. The lines between private, public and hybrid clouds, virtualisation, SaaS, and managed hosting are blurry at best. NZ nuances that play into cloud: unique in our DIY approach country of early adopters – pilot for BPOS? ? Our business demographics – in larger economies many have their own data centres Many CxOs and IT Managers that we talk to are looking for detail and business cases from a deployment and benefit view. Many of our clients using our Cloud services have drivers around performance and flexibility, managing their risk profile So we’ve got a good perspective of what’s ‘going on in the forest’
Your organisation’s cultural readiness is a key factor to consider Moving pragmatically toward cloud, using services where risk and reward make sense Some industry moves (all of Government) to consolidate buying power Clients buying based on point needs Some adopting applications like Gmail suite but rare in large companies Using datacentre services as a stepping stone to cloud computing What’s important in securing a provider – collective moving the knowledge forward Real time learnings – not just the hype What are the things you haven’t thought of yet – policies and processes in place? Eg, don’t have one guy who knows everything, single point of failure… HWR billing quicker and more accurate
Cloud is rarely a complete replacement, it’s more to augment current capabilities If your focus is operational efficiencies, moving your operations to a 3rd party, potentially off-shore, is just a risk vs cost trade-off decision. If your focus is growing your business, look at what processes can be more effectively performed by a partner. Consider hygiene vs true value – the business intelligence you will get visibility of how you can drive your differentiation. One customer noticed that their customers’ ordering of concrete changed dramatically over certain months, and they needed to understand drivers so they could alter production schedules… By outsourcing the hygiene, he’s repurposed his people to capitalise on proving a hunch and developing a way forward. Don’t make the people redundant, repurpose them to value
Better economics: Pay-per-use pricing No capital investment No long term contracts Ideal for spiky applications Scales up and down as you go Increased speed to benefit realisation Refocus staff on core business Eliminates upgrades And it’s more than just infrastructure… Developer empowerment: Self-service portal Infrastructure managed by the cloud provider Developer-ready framework for all levels of developers Cheap test and development One button deployment Geographical expansion becomes easy Accessed anywhere
Peoples roles: repurpose for other benefits, concrete example End User Experience: Westcon moved to Microsoft Exchange and Office CFO and CEO were presented with financial options, and they made the decision to move to MS Gave CIO the go ahead 2nd month they had an 8 hour email outage Had CFO and CEO on his back, CIO had to “gently” remind them of the trade-offs Risk / Economics / speed to market G-Mail – who was this Neil? Change COntrol Personal vs Organisational accountability in the DIY world, CIO can manage personal accountability in their team. If a patch isn’t applied and a virus takes your environment down, or a tape isn’t put in for backup, you know who is personally responsible and can take action. Not so for Cloud: the buck stops with the executive who makes the decision on the vendor and changes the organisation’s risk profile. Choice of partner and due diligence really important – what are their Change Control procedures, have they been independently audited / how long have they been providing managed services? Shifting your risk, accountabilities and business outcomes. If you’re all about taking cost out of your business, the first step might be virutalisation. If you’re after a business outcome enabled by Cloud, that could be, for instance, standing up an application quickly for a new business opportunity. A leading bank wanted an online saving app. No investment in infrastructure, branch forms and training, they wanted it online. It was about their differentiation – web driven, paperless, innovative. Product Innovation – where you require IT support – is such a clear contender for Cloud. Quick to stand up, can restructure budgets so don’t have to buy kit. Great for projects
The end to end benefits need to be considered – including how you access the cloud? We have an Invercargill based client, who access our shared private cloud infrastructure. The benefits outweighed the connectivity costs: deployed HR payroll application within a week, wanted it separate and self contained to understand it’s behaviour (new web app). Now prod on cloud – no plans to move it They now have a level of redundancy they couldn’t afford with cloud it was silo’d from Production environment Considering moving more applications to Cloud Billing engine has moved from legacy to virtual infrastructure. This isn’t on Cloud infra, but is in data centre on virtual infrastructure. BAT team supports this remotely (and need maximum control), and they’ve notice the uptime of the application has improved. Virtualisation has allowed them an economic redundant solution They went through the philosophical challenge – shared infrastructure means different disciplines in your organisation. Change Control is a good example User perspective – delivered from 3 data centres all showing up over one network to the User Really important to think about how you access the cloud – sharing information eg GWS have seen marked improvements of WAN, talk to Jo Bushe, what can be enabled