Saturday, April 19, 2014

Business Agility on the Cloud

Cloud Computing doesn't suddenly make IT organizations faster and more efficient, but it does provide overall agility that benefits many businesses.


More and more organizations are pushing their Cloud envelope, but Cloud is the journey, not the destination, what’re significant benefits business can gain from Cloud operationally, strategically, financially?

CapEx to OpEx. Shifting IT spending from Capex to Opex might be a good strategy for organizations that have already solved the riddle of delivering excellence in IT operations. It provides the opportunity for any CIO worth his or her weight to shift resources and focus on strategic projects that will benefit the business's long-term goals. In total, Cloud might end up costing more, but it makes the cost "bite size nuggets" that the budget of the company might be able to afford when they aren't able to afford huge one-time capital expenses. It is the benefit of getting business to see IT as a continuous operational cost, simply part of the cost of doing business vs. one-time special events of spending when IT has reached its operational limits. 

Business agility: Yes, you can save on Capital Expenditures, and use your limited budget to its fullest, but that is not the only reason to consider moving to the cloud. Business Agility is the more common goal driving Enterprises to the cloud. The business side wants to take its ideas, put them up fast and quick and get what they want- fast! The implicit statement is IT currently does not do that. Cloud Computing by itself is not the answer. It comes down to how your organization will rethink how it offers IT services to achieve business agility. There are several ways an appropriately designed cloud environment can bring speed, efficiency and agility to organizations:
·         -----Explore the always on, always connected digital working environment; expand your workforce to any location; shows a desire for a "new" delivery model by the business, a dissatisfaction with the status quo.
·         ---Scale capacity quickly up or down, and cost-effectively with the Cloud. There are some significant advantages that make utilizing hardware more efficient, the ability to scale up or down as demand waxes and wanes among them. But that doesn't necessarily equate to faster software development or better quality of software.  
·         ---Only pay for what you use – nothing more. Cloud can be seen as a consumption model, you pay for what you actually consume, and this can force some discipline into the company in general that otherwise might not even have been adopted.
·        --- Robust change capability -If your IT organization has very defined and rigid operational silos. All the problems and frustrations you have today will now be in the cloud. But if your organization wants to figure out how it can improve customer's experience and is willing to "change", cloud computing with the proper management can be a possible enabler.
·         ----Automation of routine tasks - Patching, disaster recovery, and other activities can be done in a fraction of the time. Rapidly deploy servers (within minutes), and creating templates for future use. These features provide the ability to better manage resources, increase efficiency and reduce cost.
·         -----Connect multiple systems and customize to your specifications - integrate systems and share data while your budget may be thin, a cloud solution can maximize it and get your organization the updated technology they need. You’ll have a system that’s more affordable to implement and maintain than traditional on-premise technology.

The business goal to move to the Cloud is also dependent on the nature and size of businesses: So if reduced TCO and increased speed are what you’re looking for, it’s available with enterprise cloud; but the cloud is not a one size fits all solution. Each business needs to leverage cloud's utility to meet their specific demand. Small business can leverage cloud services versus building the infrastructure needed. Medium and large customers can scale forward and back their infrastructure with just in time IT resources so that things are done more efficiently and quickly. If you have the correct perspective and the right methodology, the cloud can be a win-win situation for you. You just need to figure out what the right moves are for your organization. Sometimes cloud makes sense and sometimes it does not. Ultimately having the capability to offer a hybrid approach to the cloud strategically, operationally and financially is the best scenario.

The shift in CapEx to OpEx is in DR - people do not want to have duplicated equipment sitting cold and unused except for DR testing twice a year - if they can move this to Opex - knowing that they can grow or shrink that environment without having to replace equipment, it benefits everyone long term and opens up IT budgeting for additional needed production equipment.

There are several ways an appropriately designed cloud environment can bring speed, efficiency and agility to organizations:
·         -----Explore the always on, always connected digital working environment; expand your workforce to any location; shows a desire for a "new" delivery model by the business, a dissatisfaction with the status quo.
·         ---Scale capacity quickly up or down, and cost-effectively with the Cloud. There are some significant advantages that make utilizing hardware more efficient, the ability to scale up or down as demand waxes and wanes among them. But that doesn't necessarily equate to faster software development or better quality of software.  In addition, global availability and moving from CAPEX to OPEX are the key business drivers for cloud adoption in the deployments









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