CIO Focus: Tips for transitioning to cloud computing

As more and more users choose software Services (SaaS) rather than on-site computing, vendors must consider how to change their products to suit the needs of their users. Callidus software company Http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/5343.html "> Chief Technology Officer Michael Graves gives us some tips for considering this shift.

If your company decides to switch from a onsite solution provider to a service provider through cloud computing, it is not allowed to make any mistakes. If you don't take the time to develop a reliable service that matches the reliability of your site's products, your credibility will be compromised and your customers will lose faith in the ability to deliver reliable services.

However, cloud computing enables you to do this in a methodical and conscientious manner, and enables you to quickly market products and services in a way that customers need to deliver. Customers prefer the software service model for their own reasons, including faster implementation time and more convenient and cost-saving upgrades. According to the traditional packaging software model, you usually need six months to a year to realize the value of creativity. In cloud computing, it takes only 1-6 months from creativity to implementation value.

Cloud computing is a useful activity to improve the efficiency of the company. It is a more efficient way to run a large generator (cloud computing) rather than try to manage many smaller generators (on-site implementation). With cloud computing, your company will be a power station, and you and your customers will benefit.

It sounds like a win-win situation. But it is not easy to create such a huge shift. Running your company with Cloud computing mode is a lot different from the traditional ISV (independent software reseller) model. The same product marketing and development rules are not applicable. To avoid the common mistakes that software vendors make in making this transition, you need to do some serious strategic planning before you go into the cloud.

1. Talk to your peers: talk to the peers of a company that has successfully transitioned to cloud computing, and talk to a failed company's peers. These two people will provide some excellent advice on the smart steps taken, the structural choices made, and the mistakes that should be avoided.

2. Don't do too much too quickly: many companies try to transition everything from product and service development to the cloud computing model. This is too disruptive in the short term. In my experience, the transition is too fast and 70% to 80% of the enterprises that have abandoned their established infrastructure will fail.

3. Focus on your core intellectual property: Remember to record and retain your core intellectual property when you transition to cloud computing. Instead of rushing into the market with cloud computing, a better and safer approach is to focus on your intellectual property first and build your first solution around these intellectual property. This transition is planned on the basis of measurable and progressive implementation of the quota methodology, with interval milestones and control of each change.

4. Management expectations: When you start to transition to cloud computing, your various stakeholders (customers, partners, and employees) may ask why you did not include all the icing on the cake in the first service. As a technical manager, you need to explain the final state of the product and how you can take steps to achieve this final state.

5. Don't be left behind by design changes: As a site software vendor, the design principles you use are generally not interpreted as cloud computing. For example, when you start to provide a software services solution, it is very different to set the capacity or the ease of use of your product.

6. The threshold for greater ease of use: This is related to the previous point. As you adapt your products and services to cloud computing, you need to consider the customer's ease of use and higher expectations in terms of creativity and implementation value. With the implementation of standard on-site solutions, the product will include more training and setup time. However, users expect the software services solution to operate easily as soon as they get started. They expect this user interface to be very intuitive.

7. Do not give up your existing customers: Remember, it is your existing customers who pay. As you transition to cloud computing, you need to continue to provide them with more and more value. You need to explore ways to improve your development capacity at the same time as your current development costs. Finally, provide customers with the choice of delivering your products through both delivery modes.

8. Change your team structure: with a new delivery model, your organization's structure and software development lifecycle may be uncoordinated. You want to transform your team into smaller and cross-functional teams. If you want your service to fully represent your expertise in water products, a flexible team can absorb information about your entire company's knowledge base.

9. Prepare to respond to changes everywhere: the transition to cloud computing is a disruptive experience for all sectors of the enterprise and is not limited to the IT department. Transitioning from a one-year product cycle to a six-month (or even shorter) product cycle will have a huge impact on your marketing, sales, finance, and so on.

10. Spreading the Gospel: As a result of such great changes, you must constantly promote the benefits of this transformation. To be a disseminator of the gospel, not only advertise your own services or products, but also promote the entire cloud computing project.

When you start using cloud computing, the first customers will use your service with high expectations. When your service responds positively to the trust of the user. Others will be sure that these early adopters will be around to advertise that you can provide reliable, secure, and powerful software services solutions.