Cloud, Cloud, Cloud. Everyone’s talking about it. Everyone wants to do it. But is anyone doing it right?!
There is no doubt that “Cloud Transition” is one of the most disruptive trends of our modern times: 77% of enterprises are going to the cloud. And 59% are already there. Question is: what’s the best way to get there and succeed?
Early Indicators
The good news is that companies that made the Cloud transition bet early are starting to share their progress publicly. Just a few weeks ago, Nick Furnell of Barclays reported on the bank’s “all-in bet” in the Amazon Cloud at the London Enterprise Summit. The journey has lasted 2 years so far, required teams of storage, virtualization and security experts and the bank is now ready to enable the “basics”.
Now, not everyone has the applications that Barclays had to migrate or the 3,000 strong staff of its Global Technology Infrastructure Services (GTIS) division.
But, this story is a reminder that the Cloud transition can be a puzzle if you are an enterprise IT executive. And it can be a struggle for the traditional vendors you’ve been partnering with for years (remember that, while they’re trying to keep you as a customer, they are going through a business model transition themselves: from selling on-premise software in a perpetual manner to providing you with a hosted product, licensed as a service). Cloud transition is not just about technology, it’s about business value delivery.
As you familiarize yourself with how your team can migrate to one cloud, contemplate this statistic too: 81% of enterprises expect their environment to be multi-cloud and multi-platform. This makes sense. Before the “Cloud Era” was upon us, enterprises found themselves “locked in” with vendors’ suites. While betting on integrated suites provided by one vendor allowed enterprises to reach for the proverbial “one throat to choke”, some found themselves at the mercy of their vendor's roadmaps or business practices. Few are looking to repeat this mistake in the Cloud Era. However, this will most likely create more chaos for the business units you're looking to serve...
Who’s Here to Help?
The good news is that every enterprise software company is “going to the Cloud” too. Oracle, IBM, SAP and Microsoft have all been making the switch to it. According to the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure, Amazon, Microsoft and Google are leading the pack. But you’ll find a lot of help from everyone: the market is estimated to be worth close to $200B this year, according to Forrester.
Analyst firms have published numerous papers as well. Take for instance, 451 Research’s “Cloud Transformation Journey” report. This is a must-read if you want to find out what happens on the “other side” of cost-savings, data access and governance while your team looks to deliver more business value for your enterprise AND create minimal disruption for end-users. Look for clues you can use at work as you read through 451 Research’s 4 stages of “Cloud Transformation”: Great Expectations, Wuthering Heights, War and Peace, and The Brave New World.
OK Google. What’s Next?
If you’re in the mood for more education, the next few weeks will offer ample opportunities to find out what major vendors have to say.
Amazon will be hosting the AWS Summit in New York on July 16 and 17. The company expects over 5,000 attendees to gather at Javits Center to take advantage of the shows’ 60+ sessions from introductions to deep dives on everything Cloud and Enterprise Transformation (the event is free and some sessions will even be live streamed)
Finally, Google will be hosting “Google Next” in San Francisco from July 24 through 26. The event’s tagline says it all: “Building a cloud for everyone takes everyone”. Expect to be wowed by sessions by Google of course, plus major brands like Colgate, Spotify, and The Home Depot, as well as partner vendors of Google, Salesforce and SAP.
