Best Practices for Getting Organizations to Adopt the Cloud

February 18, 2011 topics: best practices cloud adoption expert content information technology cloud computing

Focus Research 2011

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Best Practices for Getting Organizations to Adopt the Cloud

Best Practices for Getting Organizations to Adopt the Cloud February 18, 2011 by Andrew Baker, Nathan Fultz, Fred Harrah, Sean Kline, Todd Larsen, William McBorrough, David Strom topics: best practices expert content information technology cloud computing cloud adoption
Executive Summary More and more, it seems cloud computing is inevitable. Focus Expert Todd Larsen puts is succinctly: The sooner companies realize the value of having another company manage, support, provide, deliver, backup and protect their information the better. But how do you convince your organization that its time to make the leap? In this guide, Larsen and fellow Focus Experts Andrew Baker, Nathan Fultz, Fred Harrah, Sean Kline, William McBorrough and David Strom share their top 6 best practices for getting your company to adopt the cloud. After reading this guide, be sure to check out the entire discussion and join the conversation:
http://www.focus.com/questions/information-technology/cloud-computing-best-practices-what-are-your-3-tips-getting/ http://www.focus.com/questions/information-technology/cloud-computing-savings-will-it-budgets-shrink-result/.

Best Practices Checklist 1. Explain how cloud computing can save on your companys bottom line. 2. Map user types to appropriate cloud offerings. 3. Convey how cloud computing can free up IT for business-critical initiatives. 4. Illustrate the technical advantages of cloud computing scale, redundancy and reliability. 5. Declare that lower rates and better security are imminent in the cloud computing space. 6. Dont just explain the value proposition demonstrate it.

Best Practices for Getting Organizations to Adopt the Cloud

Focus Research 2011

Best Practices for Getting Organizations to Adopt the Cloud

Best Practices

1. Explain how cloud computing can save on your companys bottom line.
There are things that the business needs to do from a technology perspective, that it cannot currently afford to do from a financial perspective. Proper utilization of the cloud and other emerging technologies could free up the necessary budget to pursue these other areas of need. (Baker) Investing in technology which will be antiquated or replaced by newer technology which is twice as fast, half the size and less costly within an 18 month cycle is hard to justify in a CAPEX model. (Larsen)

2. Map user types to appropriate cloud offerings.

Not all cloud offerings are equally valuable. The highest value are those that require massive amounts of computing power available only in such a configuration. Next are those that leverage the network effect (a simple example is Skype). Finally, there are purely hosted applications. Evaluate user types and map them with the best fits to cloud offerings. Some users do not have access to hardware required for on-premise software. Such users (e.g., kiosk users) are a perfect fit for cloud deployments. Getting success with such a group will lead to success in other groups over time, if merited. (Kline) Understand what the company is trying to achieve by going to the cloud. What does success really look like? Not all clouds are created equal! (Harrah) Know the strengths of your people. This will help you determine which cloud bucket makes the most sense to help you achieve your business objectives. For example; you may have a very strong development team, but they are weak in network and server maintenance. This may help steer you to a Software as a Service (SaaS) or Platform as a Service (PaaS) solution and keep you away from an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider. The bottom line is, take an inventory of your internal capabilities. (Fultz) Moving to the cloud means being at the whim of the cloud service provider in terms of executing processes that you would have been able to do on-premise quickly. Make sure that your application can withstand this latency (e.g., policy changes for spam filtering). (Kline)

3. Convey how cloud computing can free up IT for business-critical initiatives.

A move to the cloud will (should) cause IT to shift focus. The less time spent managing an IT infrastructure, the more time available for business support. The hope is that companies taking advantage of the cloud will maintain sufficient IT staff to support the users and work on innovation and improved efficiencies, which undoubtedly would positively affect the business bottom-line. (McBorrough)

Best Practices for Getting Organizations to Adopt the Cloud

Focus Research 2011

4. Illustrate the technical advantages of cloud computing scale, redundancy and reliability.
Clouds are designed to quickly scale for your demands, making them ideal for peak-load projects or to deal with unexpected heavy demands that your in-house servers werent designed to handle. Clouds operate around the clock and in different data centers around the world, making them appealing to global businesses or those that want to be thought of that way. While this could be an issue for some managers who want to drive to see their servers in a nearby facility, it can provide for a level of redundancy and reliability in case of weather-related outages at headquarters. (Strom)

5. Declare that lower rates and better security are imminent in the cloud computing space.
For the biggest of companies, the real tough part (and where the greatest fear lies) is critical content management. The need for a code red level of responsiveness so they can have control over or have guaranteed form an outsourced vendor is crucial for mass adoption of the cloud model. Not just the speed to respond to crisis situations, but fear also surrounds security and encryption of their data. That, coupled with trusting the network to be up and ready to handle the mass amounts of content and data which will traverse it, are of utmost importance. The telecom and AAP providers must improve their guarantees of delivery, redundancy, latency and jitter. When the prices come down a wee bit more, and the latter happens with improved networks watch out for the adoption rate of the cloud! (Larsen)

6. Dont just explain the value proposition demonstrate it.

Test. Most providers will let you set-up a sandbox environment to test applications and data migration strategies. (Fultz) Clouds are great and inexpensive test beds. You only pay for the resources you consume, and you can tear down and restart new servers easily. (Strom)

Read the entire discussion, and join the conversation:

http://www.focus.com/questions/information-technology/cloud-computing-best-practices-what-are-your-3-tips-getting/ http://www.focus.com/questions/information-technology/cloud-computing-savings-will-it-budgets-shrink-result/

Best Practices for Getting Organizations to Adopt the Cloud

Focus Research 2011

Contributing Experts

Andrew Baker

Director, Service Operations, SWN Communications Inc. www.focus.com/profiles/andrew-baker/public/

Nathan Fultz

Director of Sales, Profitability.net www.focus.com/profiles/nathan-fultz/public/

Fred Harrah

CEO, The Network Co. of California www.focus.com/profiles/fred-harrah/public/

Sean Kline

Managing Partner, Turbotek Computer Corporation www.focus.com/profiles/sean-kline/public/

Todd Larsen

CEO, CFO, VP, Director, Limitless Technology www.focus.com/profiles/todd-larsen/public/

William McBorrough

President/Information Security SME, Secure Intervention www.focus.com/profiles/william-mcborrough/public/

David Strom

President , David Strom Inc www.focus.com/profiles/david-strom/public/

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Best Practices for Getting Organizations to Adopt the Cloud

Focus Research 2011