7 Demands Enterprises Must Make from Cloud Providers

Transcription

1 7 Demands Enterprises Must Make from Cloud Providers When choosing a provider for your enterprise cloud, there is plenty to consider. How do you know a provider is actually enterprise-ready, despite their claims? To get the most out of your cloud initiative, here are seven things you need to demand from your would-be partner. For further information visit: 7 Demands Enterprises Must Make from Cloud Providers 01

2 Can you give me a model aligned to business outcomes? 2. give me a single point of accountability? 3. give me a cloud that coexists with what I have? 4. give me a secure and high-performance cloud? 5. give me control over where my data resides? 6. give me an SLA and support structure that suits my needs? 7. keep up with the evolving needs of my enterprise - and how? For further information visit: 7 Demands Enterprises Must Make from Cloud Providers 02

3 1 Can you give me a model aligned to business outcomes? This is important because Your IT systems are not homogenous. Each enterprise application serves a different purpose, and should be looked at individually when considering moving to the cloud. Therefore, your provider must know the right approach to take, to align workloads to business outcomes. Applications/workloads can be grouped into these three categories: Client-facing Client- or web-facing applications used for revenue generation, such as Generic Common applications that are consistent across all users, such as Genetic Specialised applications that are integral to your business and operations, such as digital marketing e-commerce social applications & collaboration ERP HR management core applications transactional systems analytics Client-facing workloads, for example, typically see variable usage. You don t want to be locked into a long-term agreement that bills you for resources you re not using - you want to be able to expand and contract your cloud according to usage peaks and valleys. For further information visit: 7 Demands Enterprises Must Make from Cloud Providers 03

4 Ask your provider: how will their cloud service support such agility? Are they able to sit down with you and work out an approach that takes the unique nature of your application infrastructure into account? Concurrently, find out how their pricing structures support the proposed cloud setup. Do they offer pay-as-you-go models, long-term cost savings, or both? Knowing this will allow you to optimise your investment by aligning payment cycles to how your cloud workloads are allocated. Your chosen cloud provider must give you the flexibility to move between commercial models, for the business needs of today and the future. For further information visit: 7 Demands Enterprises Must Make from Cloud Providers 04

5 2 Can you give me a single point of accountability? This is important because Cloud is not a one-time rip and replace job. Every organisation has its own unique needs. You need a provider that understands the complexities of enterprise IT and can work with you to evaluate and enable your transition to the cloud. Experience in consulting, design, deployment, migration, operation, and support is crucial in making cloud work for you. Also, many providers that do handle all stages of the cloud lifecycle do so with a mix of in-house expertise and outsourcing. For you, this means working with multiple partners one way to achieve your cloud outcomes, but hardly the best. You want to work with as few partners as possible to lessen confusion and the risk of blame games, which can drive up your total cost of ownership. Ideally, you want a trusted advisor who can be accountable for as much of the scope of service as possible, without having to sub-contract. This gives you the assurance of a consistent QoS. In addition, consider your trusted advisor s business background - are they a traditional data centre provider that expanded into the cloud market, or are they by design a pure cloud player? This can be important, as providers with experience in data centre operations have a better understanding of enterprise IT as a whole. For further information visit: 7 Demands Enterprises Must Make from Cloud Providers 05

6 Your Journey to the Cloud Today Year 1 Year 5 10% Cloud IT Infrastructure 30% Virtualised 70% Non-Virtualised On-Premise 40% Virtualised 50% Non-Virtualised On-Premise A single, trusted partner should be responsible for taking you through the cloud journey, understanding your environment and helping you transit incrementally to your desired infrastructure model. 40% Cloud 20% Virtualised 25% Off-Premise 15% Non-Virtualised On-Premise Non-Virtualised On-Premise Virtualised Cloud Off-Premise For further information visit: 7 Demands Enterprises Must Make from Cloud Providers 06

7 3 Can you give me a cloud that coexists with what I have? This is important because Moving to the cloud takes years and multiple stages of transition. It is unlikely that enterprises can do away with their on-premise investments to move cloudward. Hence, you need to plan how to stay on top of the steadily blurring boundaries between on-premise and cloud. Whether an IT department deals with cloud services (internal and external, private and public) or non-cloud services, it needs to combine models to deliver true business value through hybrid IT. A good checkpoint is to have a cloud service provider that understands these nuances, and can work with you through these stages. Things to look for are a standardised platform with open APIs and granular controls, for the flexibility to automate, integrate and customise across your hybrid IT environment, and a GUI intuitive enough to enable you to stand up your own cloud if needed. For further information visit: 7 Demands Enterprises Must Make from Cloud Providers 07

8 4 Can you give me a secure and high-performance cloud? This is important because Physical Infrastructure professional security staff 24x7x365 CCTV surveillance two-factor biometric authentication multi-tenant security fully managed firewall, IDS and IPS DDoS protection As Gartner analyst Jeffrey Wheatman put it: The dynamic nature of the cloud, coupled with the lack of customer ownership of infrastructure and limited transparency, has essentially broken traditional security models and architectures. Data retention and sanitisation encryption and integrity lifecycle management Also, as cloud is increasingly seeing usage for mainstream and mission-critical business applications, high performance is necessary to support resource-intensive workloads. Does your provider know how to properly secure your cloud? The security model must comprise these five layers: Operations Audit & Compliance real-time threat management centralised management & monitoring by an SOC 24x7x365 updates and maintenance certifications and accreditations complete audit trail reporting DR and business continuity plans For further information visit: 7 Demands Enterprises Must Make from Cloud Providers 08

9 On performance, compare cloud providers on the basis of these six key areas: Processing Power Memory Throughput File Access Speed Network Throughput Application Performance Price-Performance Ratio Additionally, an enterprise-grade cloud lets you take advantage of a growing trend among large cloud providers: providing cloud servers and storage in a tiered model. This saves on costs by separating your workload requirements into tiers based on consumption. Data not frequently accessed, such as archives, could be moved to lower tiers, directly lowering cost outflows. For further information visit: 7 Demands Enterprises Must Make from Cloud Providers 09

10 5 Can you give me control over where my data resides? This is important because Many businesses need data sovereignty control over where your data is physically hosted to meet regulatory and compliance requirements. Deciding where you keep your data has significant implications on whom you ll be allowed to interact with. For example, if you are a global organisation based in Asia Pacific but have identified the benefits of participating in a global exchange in Europe, adhering to European data sovereignty rules might open more doors for you. This may allow you to collaborate exclusively with certain organisations within these territories, to which your less agile competitors may not have access. Consider: do you need your data closer to you, which costs more, or have it further away and pay less? With a provider who can offer both options, your enterprise has the freedom to decide which best benefits the business direction. For further information visit: 7 Demands Enterprises Must Make from Cloud Providers 10

11 This is important because One-size-fits-all SLAs are not favourable for most. Your business is unique, so the SLA you get should be robust enough to accommodate it. 6 Can you give me an SLA and support structure that suits my needs? True, no SLA will ever make up for the damage an outage does to your business. But it is a useful indication of a provider s confidence in its cloud services. If their service is good enough for you to entrust your business to, you would expect them to prove it. These are some important questions to ask them on SLA: What constitutes an SLA violation? For instance, if you deploy in multiple availability zones, how many have to fail before the failure is qualified as such? What are the penalties for SLA violations? How much are the refunds, is there a cap, and what exactly is the provider obligated to make refunds for? What do I have to do to request a credit? Is the burden of proof the provider requires too high? And do they give you time to first sort things out after an outage? Also, what support options does the provider provide? Local, hands-on support, or just remote support, or both? This can make a big difference in cases when you need all hands at the pump - your own in-house personnel addressing an emergency with help from the provider. For further information visit: 7 Demands Enterprises Must Make from Cloud Providers 11

12 7 Can you keep up with the evolving needs of my enterprise - and how? Being flexible You may need your cloud services tailored to certain business requirements when necessary. So, your provider must be able to straddle the middle ground between the bureaucratic major cloud players and the generic take it or leave it ones. This is important because As your business grows, requirements change - and providers that cannot scale and customise their services accordingly are not your best choices of partners. A provider that is truly enterprise-centric will be three things: flexible, transparent about their operations, and regularly refreshing their infrastructure to stay up-to-date. Being transparent You want to make sure your provider can stand by their claims and deliver what they promise. So, if you ask for specific details about their cloud operations - even a tour of their data centre - they should be open about it. Being up-to-date You may not be able to constantly re-invest to stay current in areas like performance and security. So, this falls to your provider - ideally as part of their core business. This gives you assurance that they can keep you well covered over time. For further information visit: 7 Demands Enterprises Must Make from Cloud Providers 12

13 According to a 2013 VMware customer survey, growing numbers of IT organisations are on a journey. CAPEX savings through consolidation OPEX savings through automation Game change through new service models 25% 75% IT Production Business Production IT-as-a-Service Finally, your provider must offer a balance between price and performance. The perception of price leadership does not translate to the reality of leadership - to support a growing enterprise, more is needed than the cheapest rates. For further information visit: 7 Demands Enterprises Must Make from Cloud Providers 13

14 As you screen potential cloud service providers, keep the above in mind. Cloud is a long haul and requires careful consideration and planning; knowing what to pay attention to will not only smooth out the deployment, but also pay dividends. Above all, the provider you choose should be making cloud business viable for you, rather than making it a viable business for themselves. For further information visit: 7 Demands Enterprises Must Make from Cloud Providers 14

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