Worried About Cloud Adoption – Fear Not
March 1st, 2012 by BrightCloud
IT managers have a tendency to control their own domain, which can be a barrier to cloud adoption.
As a Cloud provider we recognise and overcome this barrier by showing that outsourcing servers doesn’t disenfranchise IT managers – on the contrary, it empowers them. This approach develops a role of becoming a strategic partner, rather than easily-replaceable supplier of commodity cloud services.
Many IT departments prefer to maintain control over infrastructure and have something to see and touch, and to be comfortable that they have control even though the underlying platform is managed for them. Unlike many aspects of cloud services, building and maintaining trust cannot be automated; it requires people. The fear of losing control to the cloud can turn IT managers into diehard internalisers who resist cloud adoption are afraid to let their servers (and their responsibilities) be outsourced to the cloud.
“Often cloud service providers do not address those personal concerns, they want to convince IT that their cloud services have speeds and feeds to match what they have on premises. That’s the easy part, but they need to do more to put those anxieties to bed.”
What do we do as a cloud provider, do to change an IT manager’s dependence on physical servers to encourage cloud adoption? How do we allay IT professionals’ fears that his or her status will diminish if they don’t have a physical estate to oversee? We believe the key is in becoming a trusted partner — not just a provider of technology — and free IT managers and teams to grasp the opportunity to move away from mundane administration and focus on more strategically important to the organisation.
Building Trust
Developing a reservoir of trust to encourage a reluctant IT manager to willingly relinquish hands-on control of IT infrastructure requires a personal touch. As a Cloud provider we need to gain that trust through long-term relationships, personal contact and continuous support, according to Duncan Little MD and co-founder of Bright Cloud.
“Our clients are not on their own,” Little said. “We help them plan their migrations, advise them about how to deploy to the cloud and advise them on best practices for cloud adoption. For more complicated deployments, we provide staff and resources to help clients understand the issues and benefits of migrating to the cloud.”
Unfortunately, unlike many aspects of cloud services, building and maintaining trust cannot be automated it requires humans. It also involves implementing processes to ensure that the performance of a given cloud service meets the needs of each client’s business.
Many providers measure cloud performance by monitoring and reporting CPU usage and uptime, BrightCloud uses more complex report and management tools to provide an application performance view of the users experience in using cloud hosting. This also assists the early detection of issues and improves the response to any incidents which may cause disruption –allowing BrightCloud to provide a highly available service with one of the best Service Level Guarantees in the business.
IT managers enjoy the benefits of a managed and scalable platform as as service, their own private cloud. This brings a reliable and cost effective Cloud platform and allows IT teams that to remain in charge of their own IT.
At BrightCloud we provide IT managers with a managed and scalable platform as as service, their own private cloud. This brings the benefits of reliable and cost effective cloud computing to IT teams that want to remain in charge of their own IT.
