In my previous two blogs, I wrote about Where the cloud is today and What you can do with the cloud.
But there is one fundamental question still left unanswered: Why use the cloud?
It’s a question I ask every customer who comes to us saying that they need to move such-and-such into the cloud. And the answer is often surprising. Many times, it’s an executive directive; literally “My boss told me we need to be in the cloud.” As a boss myself, I’m not one to question executive wisdom (he said with tongue in cheek), but I do question the wisdom of building a cloud just for the cloud’s sake. Thinking like a CFO, if you can’t show me the business value, why should I show you the money?
That said, we’re in the business of building clouds, so let me show you the value. It’s something I call “cloud leverage.”
We tend to overuse leverage in the business world. How many times have you read about leveraging some technology for a competitive advantage—probably a million times, right? For my illustration, I’m thinking of actual levers that align with IT requirements. Each lever could be turned on or off depending on whether or not that requirement was actually required.
For example, imagine seven different levers that might look like:
- Business agility
- Does the business have critical technology initiatives where IT needs to go faster?
- Financial models
- Are you interested in a capex-based financial model, or does opex work better for your business?
- Risk
- Does your business have special risk, governance, or compliance requirements?
- Core strengths
- Is IT’s core strength running the data center or launching new apps that create market differentiation?
- Ownership
- Do you want to own the IT solution or does a hosted model work better for you?
- Management
- What pieces of your IT infrastructure do you need (or want) to manage?
- Compelling events
- Is an aging data center or lack of IT skills creating an urgency to adopt the cloud?
Now, imagine moving each of the above levers into the “on” or “off” position depending on your needs. The result would be a customized cloud, or what I call, cloud leverage.
Sounds good, you’re thinking, but how do I get this cloud leverage? By working with a partner like Rolta AdvizeX. We offer enterprises a customized cloud approach that can adapt to your unique requirements in a variety of different ways. If you don’t want to own the hardware, we can move your data center into the cloud of your choice.
If you want to own the hardware but prefer the consistency of an opex model, we can arrange for consumption-based pricing on the gear of your choice (e.g., EMC’s VxRail hyper-converged infrastructure), so you have ownership without the onus of paying for it all at once.
Using the seven simple levers above, there are more than 100 different possible cloud flavors. If your vendor is trying to sell you on a Neapolitan choice of vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry—or, worse, their version of Rocky Road—talk to Rolta AdvizeX about choosing the right cloud leverage for your business. ▪