V4
Own the Cloud: Strategy and Action Plan
Whether you move to the cloud or stay on premises, do it with confidence!
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ANALYST PERSPECTIVE
You’ll find yourself in the cloud one way or another. Do it right.
The vast majority of organizations are experimenting with the cloud – and
there’s certainly a case to be made for cloud adoption. But any effort to
migrate to the cloud will be for nought without a well-defined, reasonable
cloud strategy. A consistent framework for evaluating and implementing
cloud services will demonstrate IT’s commitment to the shift to a service
brokerage model.
The cloud has a defined set of characteristics, some of which it shares with
non-cloud architectures. If your main justification for moving to the cloud
is getting your infrastructure offsite, or reducing the amount of work you
have to do on the back end, you might be better served by collocating your
services or hiring a managed service provider.
Before moving to the cloud, clearly articulate the benefits of such a
migration. You’ll be thankful you did.
Jeremy Roberts,
Senior Consulting Analyst, Infrastructure Practice
Info-Tech Research Group
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Our understanding of the problem
This Research Is
is Designed For: This Research Will Help You:
CIOs Identify workloads that are good candidates
Infrastructure managers for the cloud.
Enterprise architects Outline and mitigate risks.
Cloud architects Develop a comprehensive cloud strategy.
Map initiatives on a roadmap.
This Research Will Also
Assist:
Assist: This Research Will Help You:
Them:
Non-IT executives Understand the reasons behind a cloud
IT administrators decision.
Differentiate between different cloud service
and deployment models.
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Executive summary
Situation
• The cloud is more appealing than ever. According to RightScale, 95% of 1. You shouldn’t move a workload to
organizations are experimenting or running applications in Infrastructure- the cloud unless you expect to
as-a-Service. benefit from cloud-specific features.
If your justification for the migration is
• As pervasive as the cloud is today, its reach is only growing. By 2020,
“it won’t be here anymore,” think again.
cloud is projected to be the default business deployment model
2. Clouds have different benefits –
(Gartner).
align your workload to the right one.
Complication Host with IaaS; build with PaaS;
• Cloud strategies (where they do exist) are incomplete. They lack focus consume with SaaS.
on changes in responsibility for staff, governance, and financial controls. 3. The cloud changes roles it doesn’t
eliminate them.
• According to Softchoice, 52% of organizations lacked a cloud strategy
Even if you stick everything in SaaS,
for 2017. Not all cloud options are created equal, and picking the wrong
you’ll need someone to manage
one can erode any benefit.
vendor relationships.
Resolution
• Creating and employing a comprehensive framework for evaluating workloads’ suitability for the cloud using Info-Tech’s
methodology will allow you to select optimal cloud service models (or colocation, on-premises, or managed solutions) and
provide high-quality service that end users expect from IT.
• Codify risks tied to workloads’ cloud suitability, and tie them to mitigations that can be employed to improve the likelihood
of a successful cloud project.
• Design a cloud strategy to ensure that any cloud migration initiatives are successful in terms of governance, monitoring
and reporting, financial controls, success factors, focus, people, and processes.
• Develop a roadmap populated with detailed initiatives related to the outcome of the workload evaluation activity, the risk
and mitigation exercise, and the components of the cloud strategy document.
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What is the cloud, how is it deployed, and how is service
provided? (Definitions from NIST)
Cloud characteristics Service model Delivery model
1. On-demand self-service: 1. Software-as-a-Service: all 1. Public cloud: accessible to
the ability to access but the most minor anyone over the internet;
resources instantly without configuration is done by the multi-tenant environment.
vendor interaction. vendor. 2. Private cloud: provisioned
2. Broad network access: all 2. Platform-as-a-Service: for a single organization with
services delivered over the customer builds the multiple units.
network. application using tools 3. Hybrid cloud: two or more
3. Resource pooling: multi- provided by the provider. connected clouds; data is
tenant environment (shared). 3. Infrastructure-as-a-Service: portable across them.
4. Rapid elasticity: expand and the customer manages OS, 4. Community cloud:
retract capabilities as storage, and the application. provisioned for a specific
needed. group of organizations.
5. Measured service:
transparent metering.
For more information on these definitions see The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing at the
National Institute of Standards in Technology.
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Develop a strategy to align your needs with the appropriate
cloud (or non-cloud) solution
Service Model Example Function
Salesforce.com
Software-as-a-
Service
Office 365
Workday
Consume
Azure Stack
Platform-as-a-
Service
Amazon Platforms
WordPress
Build
Microsoft Azure
Infrastructure-
as-a-Service
Amazon EC2
Google Cloud Platform
Host
If an application you wish to put in the cloud is proprietary it cannot, by definition, be delivered as
a SaaS, since that would require another organization to build and provision it.
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Align your needs to a service delivery solution
A workload-first approach will allow you to take full advantage of the cloud’s
strengths.
• Under all but the most exceptional SaaS
circumstances good cloud strategies will Useful when the organization is consuming an off-
incorporate different service models. Very the-shelf service that does not differentiate it.
few organizations are “IaaS shops” or
“SaaS shops,” even if they lean heavily in PaaS
a one direction. Ideal for developers who want to focus on building
out an organization’s key product.
• These different service models (including
non-cloud options like colocation and on- IaaS
premises infrastructure) each have Have to host some virtual machines in the cloud
different strengths. Part of your cloud tomorrow? IaaS is your friend. It offers control.
strategy should involve determining which
of the services makes the most sense for Colocation
you. If your mandate is to transition IT from “here” to “not
here,” a colocation site might be just the ticket.
• Own the cloud by understanding which
cloud (or non-cloud!) offering makes the On-premises
most sense for you, given your unique Ol’ reliable: if you’ve got everything you need, really
context. sensitive data, or operate at a massive scale, that
is.
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What are your responsibilities based on different cloud/non-
cloud service models?
Responsibility vs. “Cloudification”
On-premises Meets the NIST
cloud definition
Traditional
Colo
architecture
Responsibility
The service models are not
necessarily discrete; managed
IaaS infrastructure services can
include managed IaaS or even
PaaS PaaS.
SaaS
“Cloudification”
Managed service providers (MSPs) can work with any of the other service models. The case for
taking the MSP route is less about the nature of the technology underpinning a particular service
model and more about your particular outsourcing needs. This is why MSP is not captured here.
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Delivery models, too, have different strengths – pick the one
that’s right for you
• Potentially infinite scalability
Public cloud • Vendor management of facilities
• Scale begets good value
• Control over existing infrastructure while still being scalable
Private cloud • Resource pooling for efficiency
• Ability to take advantage of on-premises infrastructure
• Dynamic bursting across clouds
Hybrid cloud • Most fully capitalize on the cloud’s elasticity
• Allows leveraging of existing infrastructure
• Similar organizations can capitalize on their similar needs
Community cloud • Secure, certified environments
• Still able to capture economies of scale
Though it’s been touted as the future, the hybrid cloud is only recently becoming “real.” With
VMware on AWS, and Microsoft’s Azure Stack recently released, dynamic movement across
workloads is possible. This has not historically been the case.
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Moving to the cloud is a risky proposition (occasionally)
Is it legal to store my Can I meet my
data in Redmond? agreed-upon SLAs if
I move to the cloud?
Can my cloud
How much
Da icalit
provider put
nc d
cri
ia an
ta
availability can my
e
important documents
pl y
m rit
vendor offer?
co e cu
under legal hold?
S
Skills Availability
and and
roles reliability Do I have a big
Do I have anyone on enough pipe to
staff who knows how
En astru
handle cloud traffic?
inf
ab
to handle vendors?
ion
r
ling cture
rat
eg
Int
Can my staff handle Will moving to SaaS
the change in the break my calendar
required skills? integration?
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Developing a plan to optimize your cloud experience is an
essential part of the cloud strategy document
An effective cloud strategy comprises the following seven categories, some
of which are higher priority and different in maturity (Ruparelia, 2016).
1. Focus: the extent of cloud alignment with business needs.
2. Success factors: extent to which standards of interoperability are established.
3. People: skills and roles necessary to ensure cloud success.
4. Processes: extent to which cloud is integrated into business processes.
5. Monitoring/reporting: effectiveness of metric creation/tracking.
6. Governance: the degree of codification of ownership of cloud across business units.
7. Financial control: effectiveness of the rules surrounding budgeting for the cloud.
Less mature
Maturity level More mature
Performed Defined Managed Adapted Optimized
Use Info-Tech’s tools and templates to evaluate your current state, define
a future state, and create a list of initiatives to help you get there.
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Produce an executive presentation to highlight the benefits of
your cloud strategy
The cloud, despite all of the information available, still means different things
to different people. Resolve this problem by highlighting your cloud strategy,
complete with definitions and justifications, in a format that is easily
consumable for today’s busy executive.
The executive presentation includes:
• Summary of the cloud strategy
• Explanation of different service and delivery models
• Workloads sorted by service model
• Outline of the relationship between different cloud
service models
• Summary of risks associated with a potential cloud
strategy
• Current state and desired future state of cloud maturity
If you can’t effectively communicate it, you may as well not have done it. The cloud is a big
business decision, and the C-suite wants to know what’s going on. If you can’t easily explain how
they should expect to benefit from it, your cloud dreams could crash and burn.
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A cloud strategy prevented a healthcare organization from
making a costly shift to Infrastructure-as-a-Service
CASE STUDY Industry
Source
Healthcare
Info-Tech workshop
Cloud migration initiative built on previous success We like cloud for the capabilities it
The organization in question provides analytics services for healthcare can offer but we do not evangelize
plans in the United States. It was evaluating moving the systems that its use. In our research we aim to
provide many of its analytics to a public cloud service delivery
model. Cloud was not new to the organization. It had previously help organizations find the
replaced many of its back-office systems, such as email, workforce appropriate mix that works for
management, and IT service management, with Software-as-a-Service them.
alternatives. This allowed it to concentrate the focus of its IT staff almost
exclusively on running its core analytics platform Which workloads bring value by
running in the cloud and which
Core systems were not cloud native
ones should be run on premises?
The platforms themselves were designed and built in a premises-based Which should be hosted in IaaS and
environment. The only appropriate cloud delivery model that would fit in
the short term was a lift and shift of the systems into an Infrastructure- which consumed as SaaS?
as-a-Service offering. The run rate for this was quite costly and did not Your cloud strategy will set the
yield any tangible benefit over running the systems as they were on
premises. parameters through which you
navigate these decisions.
Outcomes
– Fred Chagnon
A strategy that clearly articulates that Software-as-a-Service is the
target state for undifferentiated workloads, when Infrastructure-as-a- Sr. Director, Core Infrastructure Practice,
Service has value, and where Platform-as-a-Service could bring Info-Tech Research Group
additional capability allowed the organization to better understand the
nuances behind the decisions on when and where cloud could help it.
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Info-Tech’s approach to the cloud will produce tangible
strategy artifacts
Phase 3:
Phase 1: Phase 2:
Communicate your strategy and
Harness the cloud’s full potential Develop a cloud strategy
roadmap
Evaluate service Identify and mitigate Plot initiatives on a
1.1 models 2.1 risks 3.1 roadmap
Create an executive
Align workloads to Create a cloud
1.2 2.2 3.2 presentation to
service models strategy document communicate results
Deliverables
• Service models by workload • Risks and mitigations • Cloud strategy roadmap
• Cloud strategy document • Executive presentation
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Use these icons to help direct you as you navigate this
research
Use these icons to help guide you through each step of the blueprint and direct you to content related to
the recommended activities.
This icon denotes a slide where a supporting Info-Tech tool or template will help you perform
the activity or step associated with the slide. Refer to the supporting tool or template to get
the best results and proceed to the next step of the project.
This icon denotes a slide with an associated activity. The activity can be performed either as
part of your project or with the support of Info-Tech team members, who will come onsite to
facilitate a workshop for your organization.
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Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your
needs
Guided
DIY Toolkit Implementation Workshop Consulting
“Our team has already “Our team knows that “We need to hit the “Our team does not
made this critical we need to fix a ground running and have the time or the
project a priority, and process, but we need get this project kicked knowledge to take this
we have the time and assistance to off immediately. Our project on. We need
capability, but some determine where to team has the ability to assistance through the
guidance along the focus. Some check-ins take this over once we entirety of this project.”
way would be helpful.” along the way would get a framework and
help keep us on track.” strategy in place.”
Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options
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Own the Cloud – project overview
1. Harness the cloud’s full 2. Develop a cloud 3. Communicate your
potential strategy strategy and roadmap
1.1 Evaluate service models 2.1 Identify and mitigate risks 3.1 Plot initiatives on a roadmap
1.2 Align workloads to service models 2.2 Create a cloud strategy document 3.2 Create an executive presentation to
communicate results
Best-Practice
Toolkit
Discuss and populate the Cloud Use the results of the Cloud Strategy Use the roadmap tool to plot
Strategy Workbook. Workbook activity to populate the initiatives.
Cloud Strategy Document.
Discuss the contents of the executive
presentation.
Guided
Implementations
Module 1: Module 2: Module 3:
Align workloads to service models Develop a cloud strategy Communicate your strategy and roadmap
Onsite
Workshop
Phase 1 Outcome: Phase 2 Outcome: Phase 3 Outcome:
• Service models by workload • Risks and mitigations • Cloud strategy roadmap
• Completed cloud strategy • Executive presentation
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Workshop overview
Contact your account representative or email
[email protected] for more information.
Workshop Day 1 Workshop Day 2 Workshop Day 3 Workshop Day 4
Harness the cloud’s full Evaluate cloud risk and Produce a cloud strategy Create a cloud roadmap and
potential create initiatives document executive presentation
1.1 Brainstorm a list of 2.1 Learn about the wheel of 3.1 Assess current state of 4.1 Use the strategy document
workloads to assess. risk. cloud readiness. to identify initiatives.
1.2 Align workloads to service 2.2 Brainstorm risks likely to 3.2 Identify goal state. 4.2 Plot initiatives on a
models. impact a cloud migration. 3.3 Populate the cloud strategy roadmap.
1.3 Highlight which service 2.3 Develop risk mitigation document to align goals 4.3 Create an executive
Activities
model(s) make the most strategies. with workload presentation.
effective use of resources. 2.4 Create initiatives from considerations.
mitigations.
1. Service model by workload 1. Risks matched to 1. Cloud strategy document 1. Cloud roadmap
workloads 2. Executive presentation
2. Specific mitigations
Deliverables
3. Initiatives to plot as part of
the roadmapping exercise
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