Harnessing the Power of the Cloud

Thought Leadership Article

Harnessing the Power of the Cloud

Using Cloud services in its many forms (like IaaS, PaaS, SaaS), can dramatically simplify deployment of digital solutions and improve time to-market, becoming an important piece of any IT Strategy. An article by Nuno Furtado Da Silva, Practice Manager VISEO Portugal.

Ubiquitous access, resilience, high-availability, adaptive capacity based on digital capabilities, are no longer attributes reserved for large-scale businesses. Cloud-based solutions became a game-changer in these domains, sharply raising its adoption (though yet asymmetrically, very much depending on country and continent [1], besides industry and company).

 

Irrespectively of company size and complexity, globalization is a given (and a must), now leveraged by the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution [2]. Humanity has been facing one of the most extraordinary social-economical transformations it has ever seen – supported upon digital technologies, redefining the way we live and work, demanding continuous, industrialized innovation. This fact further stresses businesses to keep up, if they want to survive.

Leveraging Digital Transformation

Cloud solutions have significantly leveraged Digital Transformation efforts, providing critical digital capabilities to enhance existing operating models, as well as reinventing new ones.

 

Datacentres themselves, have been disrupted with the arrival of cloud computing [3], allowing to move out significant complexities found in establishing and maintaining servers, storage, communications, security, and applications – besides its underlying facilities infrastructure.

 

With regards to Digital Technology capabilities, Enterprise Governance of IT [4] must assure that business needs are satisfied, all aligning to objectives and strategy around business value. All this must be done with an ever-increasing flow of demand for business agility [5] and collaboration, across multiple geographies and time zones, at the same time preserving the necessary stability asked by any business operation.

 

The advent of COVID-19 [6] has been showing us how cloud computing allowed many organizations rapid adaptation to confinement and remote work/ education/ training circumstances [7], at the same time capturing new opportunities [8].

 

Given the myriad of challenges facing CIO’s, CTO’s (and IT/ SI teams in general), pragmatism and simplicity are a must to reach effectiveness, by translating business challenges into architectures and solutions based on digital technologies.

 

Cloud “Hyperscalers” like Amazon, Google and Microsoft, developing industry and functional expertise, while building ecosystems with tools, promoting standardization and integration [9]. This is an appealing aspect, as companies move to an ever-increasing interaction and integration with external systems, especially of customers and partners.

 

However, this may also present pitfalls, as widespread use of Cloud without proper management (especially in medium to large companies), may lead to escalating costs – an area where now, more than ever, significant attention is required. For example, adjusting provisioning to workloads depending on application profiles; rationalizing usage of development and staging environments.

 

Data transfer, storage space, additional features, etc. are other examples of items that may add to operating expenses – at the same time, cloud platforms from hyperscalers tend to be raising their costs [9]. With this in mind, conventional IT/ software asset management, particularly Cloud cost management, are essential to keep IT budgets under control [10].

 

Given past years’ digital transformation efforts and initiatives, monthly bills related to the Cloud can (and did) easily escalate to the order of the tenths of thousands of euros, and beyond. Having specific processes to identify cost levers, as well as to monitor and measure consumptions, together with clear accountabilities, is an important part of a successful and rational, long-lasting Cloud operation.

 

Considering this context, looking at Cloud choices is becoming even more strategic, including the partners and integrators that help transform, manage and support a company’s endeavour to extend their systems and run their platforms in a global, competitive market.

 

References
[1] Laurence Goasduff. Cloud Adoption: Where Does Your Country Rank? In Smarter with Gartner. August 2019.
[2] World Economic Forum. Globalization 4.0. April 2020. (Available in https://www.weforum.org/focus/globalization-4-0.)
[3] George Westerman, Didier Bonnet, and Andrew McAffee. Leading Digital – Turning Technology into Business Transformation. Harvard Business Review Press, 2014.
[4] ISACA. COBIT 2019 Framework – Introduction and Methodology. 2018.
[5] Scaled Agile Inc. Business Agility. In Scaled Agile Framework 5.0. April 2020. (Available in https://www.scaledagileframework.com/business-agility/.)
[6] World Health Organization. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Pandemic. April 2020. (Available in https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019.)
[7] Jared Spataro. Remote work trend report: meetings. In Microsoft 365. April 2020. (Available in (https://www-microsoft-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/04/09/remote-work-trend-report-meetings/amp/.)
[8] Gartner. How Will Coronavirus Impact Technology Investment Across Verticals? April 2020. (Available in https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/analysts-answer-how-will-coronavirus-impact-technology-investment-across-verticals/.)
[9] Peter Bendor-Samuel. Hyperscale Cloud Providers Shaping The Platform Marketplace. In Forbes. March 2020. (Available in https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterbendorsamuel/2020/03/02/hyperscale-cloud-providers-shaping-the-platform-marketplace/#8350aac103d6.)
[10] Stephen White, Ryan Stefani. Software Asset Management for the Cloud: Consumption Management and Optimization Take Center Stage. In Gartner Research. November 2018.