Getting Enterprise Tech Right, When You Need It

Summary

This post argues that flat IT budgets and legacy application interdependencies, rather than any lack of appetite for cloud, are what slow enterprise technology transitions, and it sets out how a hybrid approach, choosing software-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service or on-premise placement workload by workload, avoids the "all or nothing" trap. It is written for IT leaders in large, mid-market and challenger organisations weighing a cloud strategy against the cost of leaving legacy systems in place, and it references a 2016 industry survey on cloud adoption. The reasoning about workload placement, vendor due diligence and hybrid IT still holds today, because organisations continue to run a mix of legacy and cloud-native applications and still need a structured way to decide where each workload belongs.

Key facts

Article

Whether you’re in a large organisation, an up-and-coming challenger, or a boutique specialist, chances are you are wringing everything out of a flat IT budget to keep core applications running. Nobody likes saying no to good ideas, but money doesn’t grow on old infrastructure.

The Cost of Infrastructure Delay

That infrastructure, of course, is what is sucking up a big part of the budget – and your people have their hands full already. Still, given that those organisations leading or surviving market disruption are the digital innovators, the IT team needs to be a ‘yes’ centre that enables lines of business to progress. Delays can be expensive when being first to market is important. Your cloud strategy is where you can break the deadlock. To spruik the benefits of operational expenditure (opex) over capital expenditure (capex) would probably be preaching to the choir here, given that 95 per cent of IT professionals report that their organisation is using cloud in some way.1 For many, it is IT as a service (ITaaS). Is a Transition to Cloud the Answer? That doesn’t make the transition less daunting, though. When we show IT leaders through our ITaaS facility, built on enterprise-class HPE technology, their eyes light up. When we do a guided tour through the cloud data centre, we encourage them to grill our security experts to make sure everything is to their satisfaction. We often ask our clients what they would do if they were a start-up, without any existing infrastructure. The answer is almost always that they would exclusively select Software as a Service. But history can’t – and shouldn’t – just be erased.

Meeting the Legacy Application Challenge

Legacy applications are invariably the sticking point, the thorn in the cloud strategy – and they are part of a carefully balanced IT ecosystem. Complex interdependencies mean that no matter how wonderful the as-a-service facilities may be, transitioning just isn’t that simple. Amazingly, most organisations have significantly more applications than they realise, so gaining visibility must be one of the first steps. Read on for our free application visibility report offer. When dealing with legacy apps – and who isn’t – cloud strategies have to tread carefully without slowing progress in a way that affects your business trajectory. It is like a virtual Jenga game, where if you pull out the wrong workload, the lot may crash – so winning requires smart tactics. There are so many choices, though, and many IT leaders have a sort of fatigue born of facing overwhelming number of options.

Planning Hybrid Cloud Workloads

It is in determining the right place for each workload, while respecting the interdependencies of every workload, that our hybrid IT specialists find they really can help the most. The experience of many transitions – and the wisdom of our vendor partners – comes in handy when determining what suits software as a service (SaaS), and where IaaS can bridge the gap for legacy apps. They also understand when perfectly valid reasons mean that on-premise is exactly the right location for some workloads, so they stay right at the heart of your business.

How to Choose the Right Service Provider

Some detective work is in order when you go cloud-shopping. A consensus of our cloud specialists is that the priority is to investigate your service provider thoroughly – and always find out exactly who owns the service. As we must meet high standards for our regulated customers using top-tier security, even smaller business customers on a modest budget then get that same level of security as a result. These sort of arrangements can make cloud a tremendous bargain if you do your homework. Grill them on security processes and policies, ask who owns and supports the infrastructure and what qualifications and experience they can offer. After all, if you were looking at an on-premises solution, you would interview your staff in just the same way. Ask for a tour of the data centre if possible – and always ask for customer references you can follow up on before making your final decision. Need to talk to someone who knows workloads and knows cloud? Contact our friendly experts for a chat here. Need to see a clear path to cloud? Contact us for a free app visibility report on your organisation. 1 Rightscale 2016 State of the Cloud Survey

Related

• emPOWER Cloud
• Cloud services
• Advanced infrastructure managed services
• emPOWER Security
• blueAPACHE Cloud case study

Frequently asked questions

Why does the post say legacy applications are the hardest part of a cloud strategy?Because legacy systems are described as sitting inside a carefully balanced IT ecosystem of complex interdependencies. Moving the wrong workload can affect others connected to it, so the post's advice is to gain visibility over the full application estate before making transition decisions, rather than migrating in an unplanned order.

What is the difference between opex and capex in this context, and why does it matter for cloud decisions?Capex is the traditional model of buying and depreciating infrastructure; opex is paying for IT as a consumption-based service. The post frames the shift to cloud largely as a shift from capex to opex, which is one reason it cites survey data showing widespread cloud adoption already under way among IT professionals.

How should an organisation decide which workloads move to SaaS, which to IaaS, and which stay on-premise?The post recommends working through this with specialists who understand both the interdependencies of the existing environment and where a given vendor's platform is genuinely a fit, rather than assuming every workload benefits equally from moving. It also notes that some workloads have perfectly valid reasons to remain on-premise.

What should a business ask a prospective cloud service provider before signing up?The post recommends finding out exactly who owns the underlying infrastructure, asking about security processes and policies, requesting a data centre tour if possible, and asking for customer references. It compares this to the due diligence a business would apply when hiring staff for an on-premise solution.

What technology underpins the ITaaS facility described in the post?The post describes an ITaaS facility "built on enterprise-class HPE technology." blueAPACHE's emPOWER Cloud, its private cloud platform, runs on HPE infrastructure including HPE Synergy composable infrastructure and HPE Primera storage.

Does using a shared cloud platform mean smaller customers get a lower standard of security?No, according to the post. It states that because the provider must meet high standards for its regulated customers, smaller customers on the same shared infrastructure benefit from the same level of security, which the post presents as one of the practical advantages of a well-run multi-tenant cloud platform.

Is this post only relevant to large enterprises?No. The post explicitly addresses large organisations, "up-and-coming challengers," and boutique specialists alike, framing the budget and legacy-application pressures it describes as common across organisation sizes rather than specific to enterprise scale.

Where can a business go to get visibility over its own application estate before planning a cloud transition?The post offers a free application visibility report as a starting point and directs readers to blueAPACHE's contact page to speak with its cloud and workload specialists.

Source

https://www.blueapache.com/blog/getting-enterprise-tech-right-need/

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