Many CIOs recognize the power of cloud computing and are looking to implement the technology
in their own IT realms. But with all the noise in the market about cloud computing,
how do you know where to begin? By understanding the underlying service-related delivery
requirements that are needed, you can successfully take full advantage of cloud computing
technology for your enterprise so that you can improve service delivery to the business.
Here are some questions to help you get the process started:
> How do I determine and implement the right cloud computing strategy for my organization?
> What services should I offer via the cloud to my customers?
> Which services should I source externally versus build internally?
> How are my service levels being managed?
> How do I protect my investment now and in the future?
> How can I manage the cloud environment?
b m c i N D U S T R Y I N S I G H T s
Cloud Computing
in Perspective
By Kia Behnia, Chief Technology Officer, BMC Software
Many CIOs recognize the power of cloud computing and are looking to implement the tech-nology in their own IT realms. But with all the noise in the market about cloud computing,
how do you know where to begin? By understanding the underlying service-related delivery requirements that are needed, you can successfully take full advantage of cloud computing technology for your enterprise so that you can improve service delivery to the business. Here are some questions to help you get the process started:
> How do I determine and implement the right cloud computing strategy for my organization?
> What services should I offer via the cloud to my customers?
> Which services should I source externally versus build internally?
> How are my service levels being managed?
> How do I protect my investment now and in the future?
> How can I manage the cloud environment?
Enabling Technologies of IT responsiveness to business needs, while reduc-Cloud computing is evolutionary and is enabled by a ing the cost and use of the infrastructure, platforms, number of existing technologies, such as virtualization, and applications. automation, and self-service portals with an integrated service catalog. With cloud computing, dynamically The technological power of cloud computing has been scalable and often virtualized resources are provided around for awhile, evolving from the maturing of as a service over the Internet. Users don't need to have several different IT capabilities over the past few years. knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the tech These include the "greening" of the data center, hosted nology infrastructure in the "cloud" that supports them. computing environments, unified blade server and On the IT side, cloud computing can increase the speed network technology, and virtualized data centers. b m c i N D U S T R Y I N S I G H T s
Which Cloud Is Right zation, and its public nature could lead to governance for Your Organization? issues. But with the right solutions in place focusing on There are three main types of cloud computing environ- integrated IT Infrastructure Library® (ITIL®) processes ments: public, private, and hybrid. Public clouds are such as configuration management, you could track and attractive to organizations that don't want to own or audit which services are hosted in the cloud and automate maintain their own infrastructure or applications. You're governance of these workloads. essentially renting a virtual machine by the hour, eliminating capital expenses within the IT organization. Some enterprises are building their own internal or private cloud, in order to improve IT responsiveness to business needs and drive down costs. Private clouds are also appealing to the enterprise or company looking for a very elastic, dynamic computing or storage capacity. With a On the IT side, cloud computing private cloud, a business service that needs additional can increase the speed of IT compute or storage resources can dynamically provision for it. The benefit of a private cloud is that it enables an responsiveness to business organization to manage the infrastructure and have more needs, while reducing the cost control. Doing so can put the burden of creating a secure, and use of the infrastructure, scalable, compliant cloud on the shoulders of IT organiza-tions. Any gains associated with better utilization and platforms, and applications. lower capital expenditures could be wiped out or signifi-cantly reduced by the increase in administrative costs and other operating expenditures. However, by using compre-hensive "cloud" service management solutions, many If you have applications or data that are confidential or organizations are able to address these challenges. very proprietary, you may not want to risk putting that information in the public cloud until you are comfortable Other enterprises may choose to implement a hybrid that it is safe. A public cloud may not be able to meet the cloud, an environment consisting of multiple internal stringent regulatory compliance requirements, such as and/or external providers. The hybrid cloud offers the the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act opportunity for providing the... [download for more]
