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Time for a reality check?

Editorial Type: Opinion     Date: 09-2015    Views: 1482      







Len Padilla, VP of product strategy at NTT Communications in Europe, explains why businesses are struggling with cloud complexity

On the face of it, the cloud is undeniably good for business. Scalability, low cost, ubiquity and outsourced management of cloud services promise to make it possible for ICT to deliver new capabilities as fast as the rest of the business demands them. Applications can move from the sandbox to global production in a matter of days, rather than weeks or months. So it comes as no surprise that some recent research predicts that cloud will account for around 28 per cent of ICT budgets by 2018.

And yet there is still some reservation over the migration journey to the cloud. The benefits don't seem to be adding up and 38 per cent of decision makers in our recent research agreed that their cloud is failing to live up to its potential. Security, compliance and governance are all widely discussed hurdles when it comes to cloud transformation, while complexity and the need for patience are not. It is the latter two that are developing into significant business frustrations.

A COMPLEX CLOUD CONFUSED BY CHOICE
Organisations are spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing the applications and cloud platform that they run. Our research found that on average respondents are running approximately 100 business applications, using four separate cloud platforms across their businesses. It seems that there is little consensus as to which apps sit on which platform, which are cloud ready or data centre bound, and whether the critical applications will ever migrate. This may be because some cloud vendors aren't doing enough to help.

Almost half of respondents find managing cloud vendors confusing and challenging, with 41 per cent stating that they find migration more trouble than it is worth. With no clear direction, ICT is not reaching its optimum effectiveness or efficiency.

BIMODAL IT HOLDS BACK INNOVATION
With so much cloud hype it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking all apps belong there. However, our research found that 11 per cent of respondents won't ever migrate their most important apps into the cloud with security, governance and compliance being strong reasons. ICT departments spend significant time maintaining the current performance of both cloud and corporate data centre applications while also trying to innovate - and this bimodal strategy is becoming a burden.

For cloud to deliver on its potential, cloud vendors need to do more to make the cloud migration smoother. The low expectations of cloud from our respondents may be a reaction to the claims made by cloud providers that they provide simple, out-of-the box solutions to what are existing and deeply entrenched, highly complex technological, budgetary and organisational challenges.

Businesses in turn need to take a different approach to planning their ICT strategies. Rather than dive straight into a big transformation, it's best to start with a smaller proof of concept project and then use that to map out what the overall ICT landscape will look like. By taking the time to do this and figuring out specific requirements for each app, you can make better informed decisions on the appropriate environments for certain apps and avoid unnecessary integration challenges.

This is something that should also be communicated to internal stakeholders in order to correct their expectations. Cloud is not a quick overnight fix to transform their business operations, and it will require some patience and much tact. To attain real-world cloud, organisations must also scrutinise providers and find a solution that can span different types of cloud and in-house infrastructure. They must ensure that legacy systems operate faultlessly and this will allow ICT departments to concentrate on broader digitisation efforts.
More info: www.eu.ntt.com

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