9 questions to consider before embracing cloud computing

Earlier this year, Amazon's Web services broke down, causing a lot of business to be offline for several days in a row. With this in mind, the organization also needs to seriously consider the deeper risks.

As the previous article mentions, cloud computing will expand our economic outlook in ways that are unimaginable. But as with any major shift, it takes a lot of hard work to get from point A to point B.

There is a need to focus on security and availability, while considering the need for a cloud CIO and other executives to seriously consider another risk as well as something more than a basic business, namely, the degree to which the organization's business processes are coupled to existing technologies. What happens when you peel away the existing technology from the process? Ideally, the coupling should be very loose, replacing a traditional internal deployment solution with a more cloud-like solution without impacting a relatively smooth business process. But how many business processes and technologies are really in the ideal state of coupling? So the decision to go into the cloud-whether it's a public cloud or a private cloud-requires a lot of serious consideration.

Open Group Open Group, a key standard group for Enterprise Architecture, publishes a new book, the cloud computing industry. The book covers the business case of cloud computing, with Harding and his co-authors working together to enumerate a number of industrial examples, hoping to bring the business sensitivity into technical projects through relentless publicity. Before you devote yourself to any cloud project, consider the following questions that are mentioned in the book.

1 Are your business scenarios vertical? The ideal cloud candidate includes only "a single business process or a consistent, small number of business processes that can be considered a single collection." In other words, it is easy to migrate from a single business unit to a centralized set of requirements, such as migrating human resources or marketing tasks to cloud applications.

2 Are there differentiated competition in the process? You may have a way to attract customers to the highest level of satisfaction in the industry. Or you may be able to produce products that are better and less costly than the existing ones. Can the technologies that support these processes be replaced efficiently? The authors of open organizations suggest that if the business process is a key differentiation of the business, then you need to check whether the process will be isolated by technology changes to determine whether the cloud is a good candidate.

3 is differentiation based on it? If some of your company's secrets are embedded in the application or system code, such as a fast, second-level response that the competitor has not yet achieved, then the cloud is not a good candidate.

4 are there any barriers to outsourcing? From the point of view of intention and purpose, the cloud is actually a form of outsourcing. The barriers to embracing the cloud are the same as the traditional outsourcing is forbidden, for example, internal services can not rely on external implementation, long-term leasing, transfer costs, fixed asset depreciation, immature business structure, corporate culture, geographical position of sovereignty rules (especially in the EU), industry norms, compliance audit rules, and even labor contracts. Attention to compliance is especially important because it's about information security-you need to know who is working on the information and how to handle it.

5 whether there are barriers to the use of cloud? Most of the obstacles to be considered for outsourcing apply to the cloud as well. Yu Yun-specific barriers include highly customizable resources, such as enterprise licensing, policy restrictions related to resource sharing or configuration change control, too few potential customers, and unacceptable service level agreements, recovery time objectives (RTO), and recovery point objectives (RPO) provided by cloud vendors.

6 is the main business driver (Business drivers) compatible with cloud? The cloud-compatible business drivers include the need to reduce medium-and long-term TCO, improve cash flow, shift from capital expenditure to operational spending, access to functional or domain expertise, or to become a cloud supplier yourself. Business drivers and cloud incompatibility may include the need to cut short-term costs, increase capacity without third-party financing, or change the status of taxes (identify depreciation, create incentives for employment, etc.), or convert fixed assets (leases can be used).

7 is the application separated from the changes in the business process? The business logic should be separated from the underlying technology. As the authors of open organizations put it: "Business people without application knowledge should be able to modify the definition of business processes without impacting the ability of application administrators to effectively manage and maintain applications." ”

8 is a cloud solution a platform? Turning a solution that is located in the business process and application lower level into a standard, shared configuration for delivering all of the company's IT services may be a great cloud case scenario. The solution layer typically includes middleware, operating system, hardware, and data center infrastructure.

9 is the hardware, operating system, and applications specifically tailored or dedicated? "If hardware, operating systems, and application tiers are specifically tailored, cloud solutions may not be able to meet the requirements," Harding and his co-authors said. "The cloud may also not be suitable for dealing with legacy IT solutions." Only if all of the elements involved (hardware, operating system, or application layer) are not based on custom technology, then the cloud can be a practical approach.

Thinking about these issues is a good practice in itself, as it facilitates the grooming of related systems and processes. The work on service-oriented architecture (SOA) In recent years has facilitated the decoupling of business logic from underlying technologies. For organizations that have not yet implemented a service-oriented organization, trying to isolate the process from the IT system may be as painful as ripping off the bandage just wrapped up. Harding and colleagues in its open organization have been working to advance SOA in recent years, recognizing that these 9 issues "may require you to explore the business that you have never considered before, and may require you to reassess the use of cloud computing." ”