IT department will have a "big picture" role

Absrtact: The migration of enterprises to cloud computing is not just about changing them to buy it. Properly used, the cloud can bring about a fundamental shift in the way relationships between companies and their technology and IT departments operate.

It is easy to dismiss the claim as a hype cloud industry. However, it directors and CIOs who have moved to cloud services say that the changes it brings are not to be underestimated: rather than technology-focused, IT departments have to focus on technology without being replaced by businesses.

"I am now more concerned about whether the results than it [technology] are Microsoft or Google." What I need is the facilities and reasonable price, "explained Adrian Steel, the head of infrastructure management, Royal Mail group, UK postal service provider. "I can produce a huge demand list, but I don't know supplier fussed." ”

This represents a big shift in the way that IT pros often work closely with specific technology companies. Move to cloud computing, however, which means that IT departments may not even need to know which technical service providers are running, just provide the right functionality and keep their contractual commitments.

At Royal Mail, chairman of the steel company oversaw the movement of a Microsoft bpos-d private cloud platform from the Lotus Notes email system, managed by CSC, the group's it subcontractor. But, as steel points out, what users see is their local email software. They are concerned about the basic technology or who owns or runs very little data centers.

With several cloud projects currently under way, both the Royal Post's internal IT department and the CSC play after the cloud service provider's technology itself to find suppliers for coordination and integrator roles.

This change is not always easy for IT departments, Mr. Steel suggests, but for business interests-more cost-effective and flexible IT services-is worth it.

This is an increasingly popular view, recommended by Scott Hopkins, worldwide IBM's Global Technical Services department general manager. "The CIO's role in the cloud is to understand business drivers and help understand what is core and what can be provided by partners," he said.

But, he adds, it is also about helping businesses understand their IT operations and move to the cloud, which should wait until technology matures. "Moving to the cloud is very, very heavy and the impact of the application of the business running and business is the same as moving from one to another important computing platform," he said.

The company's level, specific, often specific industry knowledge is difficult for external service providers to obtain.

Even if a private cloud is set up in a third party, the internal IT department should still serve as a bridge between the business and cloud services between users.

Ideally, as Steel says, users should be hard to notice when services move to the cloud.

When it comes to the public cloud, the role of it is even more critical: the CIO and his or her team need to match the business needs of the commodity services, may not allow custom user expectations of the level.

IT departments should also be responsible for assessing risks and ensuring security, privacy and data integrity regulations. While business unit managers can now buy credit card cloud services, IT departments need to provide a framework for managing usage.

According to John Winstanley, a partner in it practice Deloitte, a consultant, has the risk of putting all it procurement decisions on the enterprise-in the hands of service providers-including from cloud sourcing.

While some companies have begun to look at large IT service providers as cloud "brokers", and even as prime contractors for cloud projects, in-house IT departments still need to provide pertinent advice and oversee suppliers.

"If it works just to run the business process, then it's probably sitting under the CFO," he said. "If technology distinguishes business, its role will be more strategic." ”

Over time, cloud computing is likely to lead to more than just streamlined IT departments-managing more operations with vendors-but also with different skill lines. As John Engates, the chief technology officer at Rackspace, a hosting and cloud computing provider, shows that the cloud does not eliminate day-to-day management by the IT department.

But his own team will often find himself having to hold more inexperienced IT services to order consumers than the designated enterprise-class IT network buyer.

He expects the IT department to support business unit cloud computing Services research and negotiation contracts and service levels, rather than insisting on lobbying, they continue to operate all the IT infrastructures themselves.

(Responsible editor: admin)