Several times our customers ask us for the assessments to select an infrastructure provider for the given application set. Most of the times the discussions revolve around the security considerations and license agreements, but here are some of the parameters that I normally include in my considerations:
- Existing data center, support and depreciation
- Vendor relationships, and partnerships
- License agreements on software components
- Compliance
- Geo-location aspects, data residency considerations
- Security
- Performance, and application affinity
- Overall cost & TCO for the given years
Here is an interesting article on the economics of cloud computing and the top 10 laws...
SaaS has led the market to date with the largest market size,
highest gross margins, and highest per-seat pricing. Recently, however,
we’ve seen the rapid emergence of hyper-growth businesses in the PaaS
and IaaS markets demonstrating that these will soon be independent,
multibillion-dollar segments in their own rights with the potential for
massive sales volume and attractive cash flow characteristics.
The cloud computing and the platforms are expected to dynamically perform intelligent provisioning, services, and applications management.
BESSEMER CLOUD COMPUTING LAW #1: Less is more!
BESSEMER CLOUD COMPUTING LAW #2: Get instrument rated, and trust the 6C’s of Cloud Finance
BESSEMER CLOUD COMPUTING LAW #3: Study the sales learning curve and only invest behind success
BESSEMER CLOUD COMPUTING LAW #4: Forget everything you learned about software channels.
BESSEMER CLOUD COMPUTING LAW #5: Build Employee Software.
Employees are now powerful customers, not just their managers! We’re
witnessing the “Consumerization of Software” so focus on ease of use.
BESSEMER CLOUD COMPUTING LAW #6: By definition, your sales
prospects are online – Savvy online marketing is a core competence
(sometimes the only one) of every successful cloud business.
BESSEMER CLOUD COMPUTING LAW #7: The most important part of
Software-as-a-Service isn’t “Software” it’s “Service”! Support, support,
support!
BESSEMER CLOUD COMPUTING LAW #8: Leverage and monetize the data asset.
BESSEMER CLOUD COMPUTING LAW #9: Mind the GAAP!
BESSEMER CLOUD COMPUTING LAW #10: Cloudonomics requires that you plan your fuel stops very carefully.
http://www.bvp.com/sites/default/files/bvps_10_laws_of_cloud_saas_winter_2010_release.pdf
Thought this one was very appropriate to what I see in the industry everyday!
One of the great feedback on 'Cloud' that I heard in the recent past... is to look at cloud as a way to do genuinely new things -- or in Tonsetic's words, "change their business capability."
Most of the times we get struck with conversations on public/private etc, but the scenarios that I see everyday in my business capacity is is actually radical. These comments can't be any more true:
"Cloud often presents itself as not that
much of a different way of working than on premises," he said. "If it is
a change at all, that's often presented as just a change in the
technology, which is often seen as at a lower altitude than business
process."
http://www.informationweek.com/cloud-computing/infrastructure/cios-consider-skipping-private-cloud/240151042
I am happy to see this today: http://www.zdnet.com/15-elite-amazon-cloud-integrators-7000012344/
...an integrator has to meet the status requirements for an Advance
Consulting Partner and then meet other qualitative and quantitative
requirements. Among those considerations are "exceptional customer
service", a significant number of customers that run their applications
on top of the Amazon cloud infrastructure, and a healthy consulting
practice based on cloud migration and implementations.
Amazon updates this list every year (the next selection process will
begin in mid 2013), but here are the 15 companies that currently make up
the Premier Consulting Partner list. I'm listing them alphabetically...
Cognizant: The Teaneck, New
Jersey, service provider and developer specializes in cloud
transformation assessments; its Cloud360 platform provides end-to-end
management services once a migration has taken place.
Some quotes that were previously unheard of from VMware. Indicates the changing world.
"We want to own corporate workload," the report quotes Gelsinger as
saying. "We all lose if they end up in these commodity public clouds. We
want to extend our franchise from the private cloud into the public
cloud and uniquely enable our customers with the benefits of both. Own
the corporate workload now and forever."
...
VMware President and Chief Operating Officer Carl Eschenbach
reportedly told the audience, "I look at this audience, and I look at
VMware and the brand reputation we have in the enterprise, and I find it
really hard to believe that we cannot collectively beat a company that
sells books."
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/02/28/vmware-to-partners-if-amazon-cloud.html
