CIOs take mails to the Cloud

CIOs today are making a conscious decision to migrate their mail platforms to the cloud. Besides saving money, it would take the away the pain-points like storage issues and also technical support (troubleshooting etc). The updates and security which is a major issue for the enterprises would also be taken care of by the cloud service providers.

There are already a large number of cloud vendors in the market that would enable you to cloudify your mail and messaging platform. But do choose the vendors wisely, and don’t make cost effectiveness be your only priority.

So as CIOs, it would make sense for you to adopt the cloud for your messaging and mail services as you can focus on the areas which forms the core of your organization’s mission and not get distracted by issues like mail service breakdown or loss of stored mails etc.

IaaS, PaaS or SaaS

Recently a person asked me which options should he take – IaaS, PaaS or SaaS? It was apparent from his questions that he has heard about the cloud terms have no clue as to what these mean.

 

Well in simple terms:

 

• IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service means that you are hiring the infrastructure and will pay as you use
•  PaaS: Platform as a Service means that you are hiring the platform and will pay as you use
•  SaaS: Software as a Service means that you are hiring the application and will pay as you use

So find what exactly are you looking? Are you simple looking at an application or the infrastructure or the platform? So determine your needs, check the requirements and adopt the perfect cloud solution!

Call Centers Use Cloud Based Solutions

Call centers are increasingly using cloud based solutions to run and manage their daily operations. For the new and fast growing call centers, Cloud has come as blessing. They have been able cut down a lot on infrastructure and technology expenses as cloud is offering them cost effective yet technically advanced solutions. To cut cost, increase efficiency, reduce energy dependency as well as to enhance the end user experience – the organizations have realized that the cloud adoption is their win-win strategy and approach.

Cloud based solutions:

•  Enable the call centers to ensure 24x7 availability
•  Makes the organization scalable and enable the organization to keep in pace with technology requirements
•  Provide access to the technology and applications required to keep the organization running
•  Allow easier and much cheaper access to expensive technology
•  Enable the call center to focus on its core mission

There are numerous other ways that Cloud helps the call centers. Please do share how Cloud is enabling you to run your operations effectively.

Cloud Contract Negotiations

If you are a CIO or anybody negotiating a cloud contract, it would do you good to prepare yourself and keep the following points in mind:

 

• Minimize Hidden Cost: Cloud definitely cuts down your cost but look out for hidden expenses or any similar issues that might hit your wallet in the end. Read the fine print carefully and revisit the contract several times before signing the dotted lines, and hence minimize the hidden costs.
•  Determine the approximate Length of service: Get with you core team and decide for what length of time your need the service. Analyze and see whether going to the public cloud or creating a private cloud make more business sense to your budgetary as well as business requirements, and then do accordingly.
•  Define the roles and responsibilities: Define the roles and responsibilities clearly so that you do not run around in confusion when the actual cloud implementation happens.
•  Search and settle on the best licensing options: Cloud vendors offer you with different licensing and pricing options. Determine and decide what you or your organization exactly require, and go for the best option available.
•  Do the penalty negotiation well: The cloud is still at its nascent stage and you might not know everything about it which will definitely put you on a back foot. Nevertheless equip yourself with data and inputs on cloud, and do the penalty negotiations smartly.

Do remember that Cloud negotiation is not much different from the normal technology/applications negotiation, but of course if you are not equipped with right data and information you might end up losing more and winning less!

SMB looks to adopt Cloud

Indian SMB market is quite large and diverse. It is growing at a fast pace and is expected to become one of the most competitive market by 2015. The SMB sector is on a continuously lookout for cost effective yet technologically advanced solutions. No doubt the cloud solutions providers are eyeing to capture a big pie of this lucrative market. In fact, recent reports have shown that the SMB sector too is looking towards the cloud.

AMI’s recent report 2011 India SMB State of the Cloud Market Overview said that the SMB sector is increasing looking towards cloud, specially IaaS. In addition, IDC recently reported that the revenue from Indian cloud market is likely to grow over $3-billion by 2015, from the current $534-million. The firm further added the cloud computing platform is expected to mainly benefit enterprise SMB (small and medium business), SOHO (small office, home office) and consumer segments.

So it is imperative for enterpises to approach the SMB markets, visit the Tier II & II cities and educate the markets on the benefits of the cloud. The SMB sector is definitely looking forward to adopt the cloud (some already have). Enterpises who manage to make the first inroads in to the market will emerge as the cloud leaders, thanks to the vast and untapped SMB sector

CIOs opt for Collocation to cut expense

Enterprises across the world are adopting the cloud. And the CIOs are leading the cloud implementation projects across the organizations whose offices are usually spread around the world. The rapid growth and the explosion of the cloud services are throwing some pretty serious challenges for the CIOs. The foremost being the location or the space to house all the solutions. This would mean that CIOs’ duties will also include 24x7 facility management as enterprises usually have data centers across world. Providing authorized access to these secured data centers, managing these facilities with sophisticated infrastructure and also ensuring that the technology is current and not obsolete—all the above responsibilities today fall with the realms of the CIOs.

And with the CIOs moving from being just a technology leader to business leader too, thanks mainly to the cloud, their duties and responsibilities have raised manifolds. So CIOs have to ensure that services are provided in faster and cost effective manner, the quality of the service is maintained as well as ensure that the infrastructure or applications never fails. But managing all the datacenters and maintaining 24x7 quality of service is not an easy task. That is exactly the reason for the CIOs embracing collocation.

Now, what exactly is collocation? It is simply data centers and infrastructure as a service. Collocation enables several different datacenters to be at the same place. So instead of having data centers across the world and having a hard time managing them, you can offload at these sophisticated data centers and focus on your core objectives.

For the CIOs collocation has come at an opportune time in the cloud arena. It would enable the CIOs to cut cost yet ensure good quality of service, consolidate the data centers spread across the world to a few manageable ones, keep the organization’s technology requirements and expansion in pace with the growth of the company, and hence allow them to focus on their core mission. . It simply enables the CIOs to focus on the services to the customers, instead of keeping their eye on the infrastructure.

Additionally, it is imperative to remember that collocation is not exactly a competition to cloud, but is actually a cloud enabler.

Adopting Hybrid Cloud Makes Business Sense

Cloud is today a reality. Majority of the large enterprises have some part in the Cloud. Whether as SaaS, PaaS or IaaS – organizations are adopting the Cloud.

To be Private or Public

But compared to Public, Private Cloud seems to be becoming more popular. CIOs/IT Managers usually tend to feel that with Public Cloud you have less control hence more susceptible to threats or errors. But then Private Cloud would be more expensive because you will have to build and manage the infrastructure on your own. So if you want to adopt Cloud for its cost effective benefits, then Public is the way for you. And with so many security solutions and controls in place, you will definitely be secured.

Many organizations support Private Clouds due to many apparent benefits:

•  You will have more control over your infrastructure and applications
• You are not dependent on the vendors
• You will get all the benefits of the Cloud but can also host your applications and systems in your own premise
• Being compliant with various rules and regulations is easy
• It is easier and quite simpler to build the SLAs 

Hybrid—the best option

Many organizations are adopting both Public and Private Cloud, public for less critical business applications and infrastructure and private for the business critical solutions. This model, also known as Hybrid Cloud, works the best as you get the best of both worlds. It helps you save money and also cut down on expenses, and enables you to have control over the solutions which is crucial for your organization.

Cloud: IT Security & Compliance teams differ on controls

One of the most important aspects about the Cloud is security and the necessary controls to ensure that the data is secured and no unauthorized person can gain access to it. And to make it possible, the IT security managers and compliance teams have to work together to enable the security as well as the compliance features. As you know being compliant with the rules and regulations (both internal and external) is equally important. But the teams are often at loggerheads to decide which and where the controls are required—the problem being the security team see it from security standpoint while the compliance team see it from compliance perspective.

A recently study by Ponemon Institute mentioned that ‘there is a gap between information security manager and compliance professionals in how they perceive cloud security issues and necessary controls”. The study further pointed out that “IT staff and compliance officials don't see eye-to-eye on cloud security issues and on their organization's policies”.

The researchers further found:

• IT respondents were "more concerned" about security in the cloud than compliance respondents
•  Despite concerns about security, evaluating the cloud provider's security measures were considered a low priority, or not at all, for 59 percent of IT professionals in the report. In contrast, 56 percent of compliance officials said it was very high, or high, priority

This attitude between the teams is certainly not conducive for the growth of Cloud as well as for the successful Cloud implementation in an organization. It is important for the IT security and compliance teams to work together, and reach a common ground as far as security and controls go. Being secured and compliant are not that diverse goals, and there is actually a thin red line that separates them. It is imperative for the teams to work together and collectively reach their projected goals.

Please feel free to share your experiences!