{"id":8587,"date":"2013-08-15T12:03:39","date_gmt":"2013-08-15T12:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.journeytothecloud.com\/?p=3151"},"modified":"2013-08-15T12:03:39","modified_gmt":"2013-08-15T12:03:39","slug":"a-guide-to-successful-cloud-adoption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/a-guide-to-successful-cloud-adoption\/","title":{"rendered":"A Guide to Successful Cloud Adoption"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, I met with a number of our top clients near the GreenPages HQ in Portsmouth, NH at our annual Summit event to talk about successful adoption of cloud technologies. In this post, I\u2019ll give a summary of my cloud adoption advice, and cover some of the feedback that I heard from customers during my discussions. Here we go\u2026 <\/span><\/p>\n

The Market for IT Services<\/i><\/p>\n

I\u00a0see compute infrastructure looking more and more like a commodity, and that there is intense competition in the market for IT services, particularly Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS).<\/p>\n

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  1. “Every day<\/span><\/b>, Amazon installs as much computing capacity in AWS as it used to run all of Amazon in 2002, when it was a $3.9 billion company.\u201d \u2013 CIO Journal, May 2013<\/i><\/li>\n
  2. \u201c[Amazon] has dropped the price of renting dedicated virtual server instances on its EC2 compute cloud by up to 80 percent [\u2026]\u00a0 from $10 to $2 per hour<\/span>\u2026<\/b>\u201d \u2013 ZDNet,\u00a0 July 2013<\/i><\/li>\n
  3. \u201c\u2026Amazon cut charges for some of its services Friday, the 25th reduction<\/span><\/b> since its launch in 2006.\u201d \u2013 CRN, February 2013<\/i><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I think that the first data point here is absolutely stunning, even considering that it covers a time span of 11 years. Of course, a simple Google search will return a number of other similar quotes. How can Amazon and others continue to drop their prices for IaaS, while improving quality at the same time? From a market behavior point of view, I think that the answer is clear \u2013 Amazon Web Services and others specialize<\/i> in providing IaaS. That\u2019s all they do. That\u2019s their core business. Like any other for-profit business, IaaS providers prefer to make investments in projects that will improve their bottom line. And, like any other for-profit business, those investments enable companies like AWS to effectively compete with other providers (like Verizon\/Terremark, for example) in the market.<\/p>\n

    Register for our upcoming webinar<\/a> on 8\/22 to learn how to deal with the\u00a0challenges of securely managing corporate data across a broad array of computing platforms.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

    With network and other technologies as they are, businesses now have a choice of where to host infrastructure that supports their applications. In other words, the captive corporate IT department may be the preferred provider of infrastructure (for now), but they are now effectively competing with outside IaaS providers. Why, then, would the business not choose the lowest cost provider? Well, the answer to that question is quite the debate in cloud computing (we\u2019ll put that aside for now). Suffice to say that we think that internal corporate IT departments are now competing <\/a>with outside providers to provide IaaS and other services to the business and that this will become more apparent as technology advances (e.g., as workloads become more portable, network speeds increase, storage becomes increasingly less costly, etc.).<\/p>\n

    Now here\u2019s the punch line and the basis for our guidance on cloud computing; how should internal corporate IT position itself to stay competitive? At our annual Summit event last week, I discussed the progression of the corporate IT department from a provider of technology to a provider of services (see my whitepaper on cloud management<\/a> for detail). The common thread is that corporate IT evolves by becoming closer and closer to the requirements of the business \u2013 and may even be able to anticipate requirements<\/a> of the business or suggest emerging technology to benefit the business. To take advantage of cloud computing, one thing corporate IT can do is source<\/i> commodity services to outside providers where it makes sense<\/i>. Fundamentally, this has been commonplace in other industries for some time \u2013 manufacturing being one example. OEM automotive manufacturers like GM and Ford do not produce the windshields and brake calipers that are necessary for a complete automobile \u2013 it just isn\u2019t worth it for GM or Ford to produce those things. They source<\/i> windshields, brake calipers, and other components from companies who specialize. GM, Ford, and others are then left with more resources to invest in designing, assembling and marketing a product that appeals to end users like you and I.<\/p>\n

    So, it comes down to this: how do internal corporate IT departments make intelligent sourcing decisions? We suggest that the answer is in thinking about packaging and delivering IT services to the business.<\/p>\n

    GreenPages Assessment and Design Method<\/i><\/p>\n

    So, how does GreenPages recommend that customers take advantage of cloud computing? Even if you are not considering external cloud at this time, I think it makes sense to prepare your shop for it. Eventually, cloud may make sense for your shop even if, at this time, there is no fit for it. The guidance here is to take a methodical look at how your department is staffed and operated. ITIL v2 and v3 provide a good guide here of what should be examined:<\/p>\n