From the time of inception till today cloud computing has evolved and is still disrupting and shaping many of the emerging trends. First one to emerge on the cloud was SaaS followed by IaaS and PaaS. The cloud platforms and their distinct advantages are in general beneficial for enterprises, however, for some they are considered to be disadvantages.
Consider following while proposing or deciding to switch over to cloud:
- Enterprise mindset about CAPEX v/s OPEX and operational control efficiency
- Considerations for connectivity speed v/s content volume
Enterprise mindset about CAPEX v/s OPEX and operational control efficiency
One of the most prominent argument for cloud is the economy of scale. This is true and important for a company that is young or for a company which needs to align their operating cost to run business efficiently. There are cases where cloud, a proponent of agility and cost efficiency may become barriers for the same. It may serve as a launch pad in initial days but may become a deterrent factor post growth phase of enterprise.
Consider the four quadrants above while migrating or recommending cloud for an enterprise. Most of the enterprise’s sentiments fall in one of the four quadrants, it is also important to know that within the same enterprise there may be different departments or independent entities that share similar sentiments and may require independent assessment. Below are the view points from enterprise perspective:
Cloud as partner: small and medium organizations, start-ups, companies focused on providing internet based solution would prefer to consider cloud as partners. These entities value using cash flow to fund the IT rather than doing upfront investment and are not inclined towards high operational controls. Departments or independent entities of enterprises with their own budget management controls also may fall in this category, however, with a possibility that they may be asked to use the infrastructure setup for enterprise at later point in time.
Cloud as neutral impact: organizations falling in this category are cash rich and generally prefer investing upfront along with full warranty as long as its available. The lower operational control requirement makes cloud as an alternate option provided enterprises are considering cloud as a possible option or already have certain level of cloud investment. First set of implementations qualifying for implementation are the non critical applications or the surround applications that may enhance business value but are still awaiting to be proven.
Divided about cloud: organizations that have better operational control but are keen to run the solution using cash flow are generally torn between on premise and cloud decisions. Fact that they are operational expenses (OPEX) focused makes cloud attractive, but the organizations may require additional assistance in decision-making, specifically in the areas of loss over operational control. Size of the organization becomes subjective while focus would primarily be towards short-term bottom line improvement to increase cash flow. Depending on the maturity of business model the long-term aspiration of this segment would be either stay with cloud or move towards on premise setup. Provided there are good guidelines and assistance the decision to stay on cloud may go for a long time.
Cloud as counter intuitive: though not a universal opinion, majority of the enterprises with this opinion are large enterprises with high level operational control needs. It is important to note that this notion among the large enterprises is changing, and is often held by established and traditionally grown businesses that are yet to experience digital transformation within enterprises. Enterprises using or planning for digital platforms would like to evaluate on premise options with upfront investment as compared to cloud. These organizations also expect higher operational control which in many cases would have had major role in shaping their business in the past. Many of the cloud platform calculators also try to justify ROI using 3 years spend, while most of the recent infrastructure comes with 5 year warranty requiring comparison to be minimum 5 years with possibility of justification up to 7 years to compete again extended warranty. There are many other factors such as network latency, IT team skills, compatibility of business critical applications, existing data centers, IT investments and the possibility of private cloud itself.
In summary, it is important to understand organization context and culture before delving into to implementing cloud. This understanding also helps in identifying positive cases and in planning cloud migration keeping in mind some of the cloud migration initiative may test the patience of implementation team.
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