Best Practices in Cloud Computing

Transcription

1 Best Practices in Cloud Computing Andy Moore... 2 Seeing the Cloud on the Horizon is Easy The cloud is one of those overnight sensations that took years in the making. Although it seems as though cloud computing sprung into being overnight, the fact is, cloud has been and Liz Kofsky, OpenText developing in its slow, deliberate way for years. First, there were off-site storage providers that served as sort-of benevolent partners. Can t afford to store it? Let us handle it. Like the self-storage garages that now dot the country s highways and byways.... Pierre Van Beneden, RSD... 3 Information Governance for Cloud Storage Systems and Platforms The adoption of cloud technology has rapidly increased throughout the enterprise in the last two years. Forrester predicts that the market for cloud computing will grow from $41 billion to $241 billion by The range of benefits offered by using cloud services and the maturity of cloud vendors is driving adoption at the global level. More and more companies are using cloud technologies and managed services to accelerate business initiatives..... Sachin Davankar, What To Ask When Considering a Cloud-Based Contact Center KANA, a Verint Company As customer service organizations continue to work with tighter budgets, the idea of moving to a cloud-based contact center is garnering greater interest. Cloud-based contact centers offer the promise of flexibility, scalability and speed of deployment while lowering the costs associated with managing a traditional contact center. But, before jumping onto the cloud-based contact center bandwagon, customer service organizations need to ask five key questions to fully understand the cloud-based contact center environment.... Bill Priemer, We re Moving to the Cloud So Where is That Exactly? Hyland, creator of OnBase The enterprise view of cloud is changing. The majority of conversation around cloud used to focus on security with skeptics claiming the cloud was too insecure a place for an enterprise to place its data, processes and trust. But that hurdle, while still on the agenda, is no longer top of the list. That accolade now rests with the subject of data locale.... Supplement to

2 Seeing the Cloud on the Horizon is Easy Seeing the Cloud On Top of You Takes Some Work By Andy Moore, Editorial Director, KMWorld Specialty Publishing Group The cloud is one of those overnight sensations that took years in the making. Although it seems as though cloud computing sprung into being overnight, the fact is, cloud has been developing in its slow, deliberate way for years. First, there were off-site storage providers that served as sort-of benevolent partners. Can t afford to store it? Let us handle it. Like the self-storage garages that now dot the country s highways and byways. Then the ASPs (application service providers) appeared on the scene. They were the rental equivalents of data centers with nice connections your stuff was somewhere else, but you still paid the same for it. They held it for you, but you owned it. Along comes the SaaS (software as a service) movement. That was the glimmering beginning of the cloud. The idea that software licenses could exist in the hands of an outside entity, and you could use it (or not use it) whenever you wanted and paid by the sip was a remarkable shift in corporate computing, and thought. Why do we need all this infrastructure and these support costs that come with it when we can let someone else handle the plumbing, and all we pay for is the water? SaaS made the cloud a viable option, and that s where we are today. The Data Locale is Imperative The several vendors who donated thoughts to this White Paper can be said to follow common themes: they each agree that the cloud allows better efficiencies, faster ROI, lower cost of ownership and easier application development. I m pretty sure they would also admit, privately, that the cloud represents a huge challenge for companies in terms of security concerns and overall governance. They address these challenges in various ways. For example, Hyland Software (whom I ve known for a long time) has embraced the cloud in a big way, but also has some caution signs in their article: Many organizations rightly see a significant benefit to be gained by moving to the cloud. So when selecting a cloud vendor, what Why do we need all this infrastructure and these support costs that come with it? are key things to consider in relation to data locale? Select a vendor with a global network of data centers. Solely having US-based servers is no longer a viable option in the global economy. Data centers in Europe and the Far East are an integral component for any vendor wishing to service global enterprises. Require 100% transparency regarding the location of data, processing and backups for all aspects of the cloud solution. Ideally an organization would like to define where in the world their cloud resides. But having knowledge of where these live is the absolute minimum. Look for flexibility and local partnerships. No cloud vendor can hope to have data centers in all of the countries required by their customers. But they can be responsive and flexible when faced with a cloud blind spot and work with local hosting partners to deliver a solution that works for all. As enterprise consumers become more cloud-savvy, their requirements will naturally develop and grow more demanding. While the cloud may happily remain a mythical location somewhere in the sky where consumers store photos of their loved ones, this is not the case for the enterprise needing to demonstrate effective governance of its information. Fast-Acting Environment KANA, a strong contender in the customer experience end of things, thinks that the cloud allows companies to scoot back and forth more easily between applications than they could with hard-wired, on-premise solutions. But there s a delay between adoption and deployment. As they put it: Existing contracts often lock organizations into stale technology solutions, thus proving to be a barrier to adopting newer platforms, not necessarily just cloud. Investments in existing technologies need to be protected, and any adoption of cloud platforms more often than not requires some form of integration and considerable thought given to security. This introduces an element of latency in adopting newer technologies, including cloud-based platforms, thus affecting their ability to derive benefits. Organizations at the end of the lifecycle of existing solutions have a strong preference to adopt cloud platforms. A growing number of small businesses, especially in the online retail sector, now find it easier to adopt cloud-based platforms with a rich feature set due to lower cost of ownership and the flexibility to scale up during peak periods. The adoption rate will definitely rise overall, but organizations with a greater ability to overcome barriers to adoption will lead the way. Embrace the New It s hard to be TOO prepared to embrace the cloud as your computing platform, but RSD has it pretty much right on: Every organization has information stored across a multitude of systems, computers, shared drives, repositories, and now much of that information is moving to the cloud. This is going to require a new approach and new technologies in order to address the challenges arising from the growing volume and format of information being generated within the traditional IT infrastructure as well as within cloud-based storage systems and repositories. Managing cloud-based content may be new to an organization and as a result there might be uncertainty over the risks involved and the various approaches to mitigate them. Sometimes the content is already in the cloud and was originally created by a cloud-based collaboration system, social media application, a cloud-based ECM system, or simply stored there by an end user. In other cases, use of the cloud means that an organization s content has left the confines of the internal corporate network and has been relocated to the cloud. Most of the cloud repositories currently lack information governance and record management capabilities. This means that an appropriate architecture and supporting processes have to be put in place to ensure that content is properly governed and managed. There are clearly a number of issues yet to be addressed. But these companies are at the edge of a new concept. I encourage you to take a look at the following pages and decide for yourselves whether the cloud is on your horizon. S2

3 Information Governance for Cloud Storage Systems and Platforms By Pierre Van Beneden, Chief Executive Officer, RSD Pierre Van Beneden CEO Pierre Van Beneden brings more than 25 years experience driving growth at software companies through leadership and a results-focused approach. Prior to joining RSD, Pierre was VP EMEA for Adobe Systems Inc. From 1995 to 2001, Van Beneden was with Lotus Development Corporation where he served in a variety of executive roles. Prior to his time with Lotus, Van Beneden spent almost a decade at Oracle Corporation driving global growth strategies. The adoption of cloud technology has rapidly increased throughout the enterprise in the last two years. Forrester predicts that the market for cloud computing will grow from $41 billion to $241 billion by The range of benefits offered by using cloud services and the maturity of cloud vendors is driving adoption at the global level. More and more companies are using cloud technologies and managed services to accelerate business initiatives, allowing them to be more agile and flexible, and reduce costs. Employees are utilizing cloudbased storage technologies for corporate records and this is raising new challenges for organizations. Every organization has information stored across a multitude of systems, computers, shared drives, repositories, and now much of that information is moving to the cloud. This is going to require a new approach and new technologies in order to address the challenges arising from the growing volume and format of information being generated within the traditional IT infrastructure as well as within cloud-based storage systems and repositories. Managing cloud-based content may be new to an organization and as a result there might be uncertainty over the risks involved and the various approaches to mitigate them. Sometimes the content is already in the cloud and was originally created by a cloud-based collaboration system, social media application, a cloud-based ECM system, or simply stored there by an end user. In other cases, use of the cloud means that an organization s content has left the confines of the internal corporate network and has been relocated to the cloud. Most of the cloud repositories currently lack information governance and record management capabilities. This means that an appropriate architecture and supporting processes have to be put in place to ensure that content is properly governed and managed. By coupling a cloud-enabled information governance platform with those cloud content repositories, your organization will be able to immediately turn those cloud-based repositories into a compliance system while letting business end-users continue to make use of them. Information Governance in a Hybrid World Information governance (IG) must be able to be deployed within a traditional IT infrastructure, a cloud-based environment, a hybrid of traditional and cloud, and IG must be able to govern information stored on-premise or in the cloud. Information governance is rapidly moving toward an enterprise service model enabling companies to deploy shared services across the complex IT infrastructure. Information governance, as standard shared services of IT infrastructure, eliminates dependence on users and enables uniform governance across all applications and systems. In order to remain competitive and maintain costs, organizations must consider information governance as a service. The days of proprietary governance capabilities that are tied to silo proprietary applications or systems are coming to an end. Technologies with a flexible central policy engine, capable of managing the challenges of complex, federated governance environments are going to be the ones that enable organizations to make the most strategic use of information. These technologies have an enforcement model not tied to a specific store or repository of assets, but leverage standards to enable automatic enforcement across all systems, repositories, applications and platforms. It s clear that the cloud is here to stay, making it that much more important for organizations to consider information governance solutions that provide both on premise and cloud-based deployment enabling governance of information either on premise or in the cloud. S3

4 Five Key Questions What To Ask When Considering a Cloud-Based Contact Center By Sachin Davankar, Product Marketing Manager, KANA, a Verint Company As customer service organizations continue to work with tighter budgets, the idea of moving to a cloud-based contact center is garnering greater interest. Cloud-based contact centers offer the promise of flexibility, scalability and speed of deployment while lowering the costs associated with managing a traditional contact center. But, before jumping onto the cloud-based contact center bandwagon, customer service organizations need to ask five key questions to fully understand the cloudbased contact center environment. What developments have changed the landscape for the cloud-based contact center market? The focus on customer experience is coming of age as customer-centric strategies that were envisioned more than a decade ago begin to finally take form, with technology as a strong enabler. In addition, customers are dictating new terms of modern commerce and service empowered by technology, transparency and a wealth of information. They want their voices to be heard. They engage across multiple channels and media, and expect their needs to be anticipated, which is driving organizations to offer more channels for customer engagement. Through technology, customers feel empowered to demand exactly what they want. And when their needs are not met, they will not hesitate to patronize a competitor or broadcast their displeasure by leveraging social media channels to everyone they know and even some they don t. Social media platforms have spun a new form of social customer service that can bring an organization s front-line staff into the public forum. Which types of organizations are adopting cloud-based contact centers and why? Existing contracts often lock organizations into stale technology solutions, thus proving to be a barrier to adopting newer platforms, not necessarily just cloud. Investments in existing technologies need to be protected, and any adoption of cloud platforms more often than not requires some form of integration and considerable thought given to security. This introduces an element of latency in adopting newer technologies, including cloud-based platforms, thus affecting their ability to derive benefits. Organizations at the end of the life cycle of existing solutions have a strong preference to adopt cloud platforms. A growing number of small businesses, especially in the online retail sector, now find it easier to adopt cloud-based platforms with a rich feature set due to lower cost of ownership and the flexibility to scale up during peak periods. The adoption rate will definitely rise overall, but organizations with a greater ability to overcome barriers to adoption will lead the way. The public sector operates under a significantly different set of parameters, where data sensitivity, compliance and security trump the adoption of cloud-based platforms unless vendors can prove 100-percent compliance. Validation of these parameters affects the rate of adopting cloud-based platforms. Can you make a strong case to C-level executives? Contact center managers are the ones who are best poised to make a case for any solution that can improve operational efficiency in their contact center and improve customer experience. While there are often additional difficulties for midsize to large organizations to make a shift to the cloud, they are increasingly analyzing cloud options. Dependency on existing technologies, back-office systems and existing contractual obligations prove to be deterrents in adopting newer technologies. The same applies to their ability to validate the business case for adopting cloud-based solutions. Contact center managers are urged to review these dependencies and engage proactively with IT and back-office management as operational efficiencies in the contact center may not necessarily improve overall organizational cost to implement. What functionalities are driving demand? It should be noted that the initial driver for cloud-based contact centers was not necessarily the ability to deliver feature-rich applications, but rather to reduce the cost of ownership to organizations to manage and maintain technology. Cloud-based platforms primarily allow organizations to focus on their core business. From IT outsourcing to a steady evolution into the cloud, it seems to be a steady progression of software solutions to move all functionalities into the cloud. What should you look for in a cloud provider? A number of factors come into play when selecting vendors. Cost of acquiring a product or service that best fits an organization s needs is of prime importance and must be driven by a strong business case. Core to that business case is your vision for customer service as an extension of your brand. Look for a vendor that can match your vision. The cloud has enabled a plethora of click here to get started vendors. Before investing time down one of those trails, be sure that where it leads completely covers where you want to be. Also create a framework for vendor selection that highlights the vendor s past performance and its ability to execute on a strategic vision. A comparison of a vendor s strategic vision from five years ago to date will reveal significant information about a vendor s sustainability and capability to bring the vision to fruition. Vendors must support their customers existing software investments by continuing to enhance their products with new core features, capabilities and access to world-class services and support. Vendors must be in a position to demonstrate the value of their customers ongoing investments in software-as-a-service by delivering new, state-of-the-art applications that work across product lines to offer new and next-generation capabilities to enhance existing solutions. Determine vendor commitment to R&D and continued investment in new functionality and capabilities to deliver tangible business benefit and value on an ongoing basis. Customer service organizations need to take a moment before jumping onto the cloud-based contact center bandwagon. Don t get blinded by the shiny promise of reduced costs and speedy deployment. As with any other technology investment, organizations need to ask some key questions prior to adoption. Then, once you have sufficiently answered those questions, feel free to climb aboard the bandwagon and enjoy the ride. KANA, a Verint Company, is a leading provider of on-premises and cloud-based customer service solutions. KANA helps global organizations including many of the Fortune 500, mid-market businesses and government agencies optimize their customer engagements with unified and contextual data across agent, web, social and mobile experiences. Using KANA solutions, organizations can reduce operational costs, increase resolution rates and improve brand loyalty. Learn more at S4

5 We re Moving to the Cloud So Where is That Exactly? The enterprise view of cloud is changing. The majority of conversation around cloud used to focus on security with skeptics claiming the cloud was too insecure a place for an enterprise to place its data, processes and trust. But that hurdle, while still on the agenda, is no longer top of the list. That accolade now rests with the subject of data locale. Data locale is, in essence, very simple to describe. It s where your cloud data and processes live. From a practical point of view, it tends not to be overly focused on the actual servers and buildings they reside in (the data center), but more about the country in which they are located. This might seem like an obvious thing to consider when using cloud services, but many organizations have no idea where their data is stored or where their processes are happening. Most of us wouldn t ship important documents to an unknown location for storage and processing. But this is exactly what many organizations using cloud providers are inadvertently doing. However, simply asking a cloud provider where its enterprise cloud resources are based may not help. Many cloud providers will not divulge this information. For those that actually do, it may still be difficult. The complex, distributed nature of some cloud operations (particularly file storage) means cloud resources for any given organization may be spread over many data centers, possibly even many countries. Long Arm of the Law This unstructured and uncontrollable approach causes obvious governance concerns; however, for many organizations there is a bigger issue to consider. Many countries have specific regulations relating to the storage and processing of data relating to individuals. This manifests itself most visibly in the European By Bill Priemer, President and CEO, Hyland, creator of OnBase Union where the soon-to-be implemented General Data Protection Regulation will bring organizations operating in those 27 European countries into a single regime of data-related rules, with associated penalties for noncompliance. Many organizations have no idea where their data is stored or where their processes are happening. While the regulations do permit data to be stored in non-eu countries under certain conditions, e.g., the U.S. via the Safe Harbor agreement, many enterprises in the region are resisting. Instead they are choosing to be ultra-cautious and specify that any cloud facilities used must be in-country and all data must remain within that country s geographical borders. And remember, cloud systems have backups, the location of these also falls under this remit. This in my country or not at all approach is becoming prevalent not only in parts of Europe (Germany, Switzerland and Austria being prime examples), but also Australia and the Middle East. In the latter region, this is not due to any overriding legislation or regulations, but is based on a combination of scaremongering, corporate preference and data connection speeds. Bill Premier President and CEO the company s CEO in January Bill Priemer is president and CEO of Hyland, creator of OnBase. Priemer joined the company in 1997 as vice president of marketing. He was promoted to vice president of sales and marketing in 2001, named chief operating officer in 2005 and became In his roles at Hyland, Bill has been a key figure to drive the successful growth of the company, leading all client- and partner-facing initiatives, including global sales and marketing, professional services, technical training and Hyland s customer support. The Advantages of the Cloud Despite these challenges, many organizations rightly see a significant benefit to be gained by moving to the cloud. So when selecting a cloud vendor, what are key things to consider in relation to data locale? Select a vendor with a global network of data centers. Solely having US-based servers is no longer a viable option in the global economy. Data centers in Europe and the Far East are an integral component for any vendor wishing to service global enterprises. Require 100% transparency regarding the location of data, processing and backups for all aspects of the cloud solution. Ideally an organization would like to define where in the world their cloud resides. But having knowledge of where these live is the absolute minimum. Look for flexibility and local partnerships. No cloud vendor can hope to have data centers in all of the countries required by their customers. But they can be responsive and flexible when faced with a cloud blind spot and work with local hosting partners to deliver a solution that works for all. As enterprise consumers become more cloud-savvy, their requirements will naturally develop and grow more demanding. While the cloud may happily remain a mythical location somewhere in the sky where consumers store photos of their loved ones, this is not the case for the enterprise needing to demonstrate effective governance of its information. Those moving to the cloud need to do so with absolute confidence. The cloud industry has answered initial objections relating to security. Now it is time to provide transparency and flexibility regarding where cloud data and services are located. Let s face it: enterprise users deserve to know where their cloud is based and pretty soon they re going to start demanding it. S5

6 2014 WHITE PAPER CALENDAR BEST PRACTICES IN... BPM & CASE MANAGEMENT January 2014 Reservations: 10/11 Materials: 11/1 Mail Date: 12/20 E-DISCOVERY February 2014 Reservations: 11/8 Materials: 11/29 Mail Date: 1/22 ANALYTICS FOR BIG DATA March 2014 Reservations: 12/13 Materials: 1/3 Mail Date: 2/21 ENTERPRISE CONTENT MANAGEMENT April 2014 Reservations: 1/10 Materials: 1/31 Mail Date: 3/20 INTELLIGENT SEARCH & INFORMATION ACCESS May 2014 Reservations: 2/7 Materials: 2/28 Mail Date: 4/22 ENHANCING SHAREPOINT June 2014 Reservations: 3/14 Materials: 4/4 Mail Date: 5/21 BPM/Workflow/CM/DM Business Process Management Content Management Adaptive Case Management Collaboration Cloud-Provided Services Contracting Business Process Outsourcing Bonus Distribution: Gartner BPM Summit RM/Retention Practices/ /Compliance Enterprise Search/Information Access Records Management Management Information Governance Legal Hold Document Life Cycle Management Storage/Archive Bonus Distribution: LegalTech NYC BI Data Mining Hadoop Structured/Unstructured Integration Predictive BI Real-Time Data ETL Data Mining Big Data as a Service Semantic Analysis Bonus Distribution: Gartner BI and Analytics ECM/EDMS/DRM/KM Web Content Management Document/Image/Forms Management Digital Asset Management Cloud and Mobile Applications Regulatory Compliance Case Management Records Management Bonus Distribution: AIIM 2014 Classification/Taxonomies/Categorization Unstructured Content Management Text Mining/Analytics/Semantics Content Management Systems Auto-Categorization XML/Authoring Internal/External Search Strategies Unstructured/Structured Content Integration Bonus Distribution: Enterprise Search & Discovery; FOSE, Document Strategy Forum, MER 2014; Gartner Portals, Content & Collaboration Summit; Gartner Customer 360 Summit RM/Storage/Social Nets Cloud Storage Search Office 365 Migration Records Management Collaboration Portals Security Bonus Distribution: Gartner Security and Risk Management; LegalTech West; Gartner PPM & IT Governance Summit; CLOUD COMPUTING July 2014 Reservations: 4/11 Materials: 5/2 Mail Date: 6/20 KM FOR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE August 2014 Reservations: 4/18 Materials: 5/9 Mail Date: 6/20 INFORMATION GOVERNANCE September 2014 Reservations: 6/13 Materials: 7/3 Mail Date: 8/21 SOLUTIONS FOR BIG DATA October 2014 Reservations: 7/11 Materials: 8/1 Mail Date: 9/22 MOBILE WORKFORCE November 2014 Reservations: 8/9 Materials: 8/30 Mail Date: 10/22 APIs/IaaS/SaaS Off-Site vs. On-Prem Security and Privacy Public/Private/Hybrid Information Governance Infrastructure/Platforms Open Source Mobile Bonus Distribution: CRM Evolution KCS v5/kpis/analytics Knowledgebases Contact Center Customer Relationship Management Help Desk Service Management Knowledge Management Incident Management Web Experience Management Bonus Distribution: CRM Evolution KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT December 2014 Reservations: 8/15 Materials: 9/5 Mail Date: 10/22 Management/E-Records/Risk Management E-Discovery Information Governance Document Life Cycle Management Retention Management/Archive Legal Hold Security Business Continuity Bonus Distribution: ARMA; Gartner IT Financial Procurement & Asset Management Analytics/Off-Prem/NoSQL & Hadoop Data Visualization Deploying Hadoop Privacy and Security Data Center Optimization Connectors Total Cost of Ownership Hybrid Architectures Bonus Distribution: Gartner Symposium/ITxpo; ARMA BYOD/MWFM/PDAs Mobile Applications Information Governance User Interface Design Wi-Fi and 4G Security Smartphone Apps Social Bonus Distribution: KMWorld 2014; Enterprise Search & Discovery; Taxonomy Boot Camp; SharePoint Symposium EDMS/ECM/BI/CI/E-Learning Content Management Document Management Enterprise Search Classification/Taxonomy Collaboration Expertise Location Project Management/Modeling Business Performance Analysis Bonus Distribution: : KMWorld 2014; Enterprise Search & Discovery; Taxonomy Boot Camp; SharePoint Symposium S6

7 GRAND HYATT Washington, DC NOVEMBER 4 7 Enterprise Knowledge & Customer Value people Value DIAMOND SPONSORS + = Save The Date! Process LEARN About Leading-Edge Practices IMPROVE Taxonomies Content Management GAIN Knowlege About Important Stuff EXPLORE Social Media & Networking for the Enterprise STREAMLINE Information & Knowledge Flows MEDIA SPONSORS Also Includes kmworld.com/conference Organized and Produced by #kmworld

8 For more information on the companies who contributed to this white paper, visit their websites or contact them directly: Hyland, creator of OnBase Clemens Road Westlake OH PH: Contact: Web: KANA, a Verint Company 840 West California Avenue, Suite 100 Sunnyvale CA PH: Sales: ; General: Contact: info@kana.com Web: RSD Glenpointe Centre East, Suite Frank W. Burr Boulevard Teaneck NJ PH: FAX: Contact: info@rsd.com Web: Produced by: KMWorld Magazine Specialty Publishing Group Kathryn Rogals Paul Rosenlund Andy Moore Ext. 309 kathy_rogals@kmworld.com paul_rosenlund@kmworld.com andy_moore@kmworld.com For information on participating in the next white paper in the Best Practices series, contact: paul_rosenlund@kmworld.com or kathy_rogals@kmworld.com