What Will it Take to Implement Cloud Computing in Your Enterprise?
January 20, 2012
As an enterprise IT decision maker, you can’t afford to dismiss the cloud computing model. You’ve heard all about how cloud deployments and managed services can benefit your business and take the pressures of managing and maintaining routine services away from you and your overburdened staff, enabling you to focus on maximizing profits and creating new efficiencies for your company.
There are so many variables to take into consideration when choosing to offload important business functionality to the cloud. Picking a service provider who offers the correct blend of services and solutions to meet your needs is a top priority, but pricing, service level agreements (SLAs), security, ease of management and administration/reporting are all important factors…
Will the solution be accessible from the ever-growing array of mobile devices used by your employees? What type of management interface will it utilize and what type of security and authentication system is in place to protect users and managers? Is the service provider reputable? Do they live up to their uptime and quality guarantees? Do they offer redundant data center backup and disaster recovery? An increasingly important differentiator for today’s service providers is also whether they can offer your business a custom blend of services that includes the management and administration capabilities you require.
Choosing a service provider and a solution is only part of the equation. Actually implementing that solution and migrating your data and functionalities to the cloud is a major and daunting process. You want the transition to be as smooth as possible without cutting into your uptime, profit margins and efficiencies. That’s a pretty tall order, and you’ll want assurances that everything will go according to plan — and that there is in fact, a solid plan in place.
So, what does it really take to implement a cloud solution for your company? And will your needs really be met or will you be left with an even larger mess to clean up? The best way to get answers to these questions and more is to listen to people who have been there and done that. People like IT leaders at major organizations who have successfully branched out into the cloud and lived to tell the tale.
TMC recently held a webinar with three IT executives from major enterprises who not only successfully implemented cloud computing solutions at their companies, but who learned a few lessons along the way and offered advice for companies just venturing into the cloud on what to embrace and what to avoid when setting up a cloud configuration.
IT gurus from Dell SecureWorks, NASA Shared Services Center and Greenway Medical discussed the lessons learned in their companies’ cloud implementations as well as their use cases and future plans. The webinar was moderated by Eric Norden, VP of information technology at Internap and is available for viewing through free registration.