Five essential considerations for software defined and cloud computing adoption

Many CTOs and CIOs are concerned with the migration of core IT systems to a fully integrated cloud solution. The move can be disruptive to your company’s operational procedures, with potential for down time. So it’s important to plan these critical tasks carefully. Computacenter is a leading IT solution & services provider that has undertaken such migrations for large companies and uses a tried and tested approach to minimise failure or costly modifications to the planning. Their white paper on cloud storage architecture reveals plenty of insightful advice, and is free to download.

Cloud as a service is now essential to all businesses in managing IT systems, and used by the majority of medium or large businesses, but the integration and maintenance is an ongoing task that requires strict security compliance and strategic roll-out. Key to the entire end goal is user-driven needs, to ensure that those accessing the data and communicating are completely comfortable with the system.

Nick Henry, Head of Transformation and Cloud Services at Computacenter, recommends the five point checklist formulated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the US, as follows;

• On-demand self-service of computing capabilities as needed: provided automatically without human interaction with each service provider;
• Broad network access via multiple devices: mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and workstations;
• Resource pooling of computing resources to serve multiple consumers;
• Rapid elasticity of capabilities so that they can be provisioned and released, in some cases automatically, in line with demand;
• Measured service so that resource use can be automatically controlled and optimised, monitored and reported.

“IT operational models have been established, growing and morphing for 20 years or more. Now, however, with a move to cloud services, these models are largely being ripped up. There will be resistance. After all, we’re talking about new processes, re-skilling, and even a fear of job loss”, he says.

To achieve this, Computacenter suggest a six step strategy, which is detailed in their white paper, for example, the process needs to be designed around the end user, your staff, clients or customers. Software defined networking may rely on highly skilled and expert technologists but ultimately they will need to understand how the system is used by the user to deploy an efficient and practical system.

Computacenter have plenty of experience and case studies of working with large companies to deliver a system that works for all those involved. Learn more by clicking here.

Contact Information

Alex Brooks

Account Director

Octopus Group

computacenter@weareoctopusgroup.net