Cloud Computing - Four Concerns Infrastructure and processes Managers Should Ask
Many organizations, especially in the financial services sector, might want to start with a private cloud where the organization may be the only user, and the cloud runs on their premises. They will probably migrate for this private cloud over time as opposed to a wholesale cutover to the new virtual infrastructure. Since, a lot of their applications utilize a service-oriented architecture (SoA) they are able to phase this operating by service. Public cloud may also be employed for testing purposes or to run functions for example customer service. Which means that a hybrid solution where some applications run in the datacenter, some utilize private cloud and still others utilize public cloud may be the most realistic solution for meeting the needs of the business these characteristics serve.
When evaluating if you should utilized the advantages of the cloud, I&O must ask four questions to ensure that the promises made by cloud computing are in fact fulfilled.
Will while using cloud enhance IT expansion cheaper?
In order to find the answer to this, the I&O team must take a critical look at the company's existing IT assets. Identify any assets that are limiting the business's growth. Calculate the cost of upgrading these assets internally, then rival the price of utilizing a cloud-based service. Often the advantage of cloud is described as move of capital expenditures to operational expenditures. This is not exactly correct. It really is more about cash flow and whether you pay now or higher time.
One issue that usually arises during the evaluation of the existing IT enterprise is whether the current enterprise is operating at its full capacity. Knowing these details assures that purchasing decisions are fully informed. Before I&O can accurately assess the cost of upgrading versus transfer of a service to the cloud, a credit card applicatoin performance management tool ought to be implemented. The best tool includes application dependency discovery, change and configuration management, operational resource monitoring, business transaction management and application performance monitoring.
With this information in hand, I&O can identify where existing resources are underutilized and where bottlenecks occur. Making the decision as to migrate services to the cloud with different need for additional capacity ought to be leveraged on real application performance data and not on guesswork. Then and only then can real costs be evaluated.
Will while using cloud enhance Lifecycle Management?
The best way to answer this is once again to make use of the data supplied by a credit card applicatoin performance management solution (APM). Because APM identifies how resources such as applications are functioning, it may assist I&O teams in evaluating where resources have been in the IT lifecycle.
APM can make it apparent that certain applications would take advantage of a move to the cloud. Without it information, I&O can expect that moving an application to the cloud will come across the client service goals from the business. Yet, I&O decisions should do more. They should also benefit the long- and short-term bottom line for that business.
The way I&O monitor Cloud activities?
Once applications happen to be deployed around the cloud, a well-chosen APM solution becomes essential. Without a solution that can provide real-time 360 situational awareness and monitor every application whether it's on the cloud or in the datacenter, a business remains susceptible to cascading failures that begin small, but with time have the possibility for considerable impact if unchecked. Considerable resources can be consumed in creating the fires these issues ignite. When IT is hosted in-house with no APM solution, estimates claim that 24% of the IT staff's time is spent troubleshooting applications problems that have previously caused enough impact to end users to create service requests. Additionally studies have shown that up to 10% of a firm's gross revenue could be adversely impacted by application performance problems. This is a significant cost.
To attempt to provide quality customer support using cloud-based applications without using application performance management tools will in the end result in a negative, expensive experience. It is crucial that APM maintain place, monitoring transactions, end-user experience, middleware messaging, along with other aspects of the cloud and native IT enterprise constantly.
How will I&O maintain Cloud governance?
Once more the best answer is to implement application performance management tools. Governance includes everything from collecting historical application data and enabling dynamic queries, to detecting response time problems, bottlenecks, failures and application availability issues.
An application performance management solution will be able to determine the main cause of any failures and degradations that occur. It should then automatically alert the I&O team about any business impacting events it's detected. Also it should have the ability to generate an automatic response to resolve the issue detected. This can only happen if a complex event processing engine is controlling and automating the control over application performance.
I&O teams are only able to govern transactions which are visible. Application performance management provides that essential visibility. It offers inside into every application crossing with the multiple tiers from the IT enterprise, including integrated cloud applications. If the goal would be to meet SLAs or maintain superior customer service, APM assures that each transaction is seen from end-to-end whether IT functions reside locally, around the cloud or on the hybrid of these two.
Application performance management assures that business goals are met. It delivers the financial metrics required by I&O managers to accomplish two vital business roles--to manage assets so business costs are reduced, and to boost the service delivered to customers. APM is an essential tool for just about any I&O team. It provides the answers to all of these important questions.
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