Technology is not everything - What matters when deploying cloud services

Cloud is just technology – isn’t it? Clearly no: cloud is much more than technology. Read this blog post to find out why and what its implications are. Part one looks at the benefits, challenges, and organizational changes that cloud services bring.

Flexibility and agility - Advantage or challenge?

Flexibility and agility are the best-known arguments for the use of cloud services. They apply not only to the servers on the hyperscaler platforms, but especially to serverless services, which scale almost indefinitely. The ability to consume services on demand – in other words, more tomorrow and less the day after tomorrow than today – also means a whole new billing logic and service provision for IT services in the enterprise. Where previously, fixed budgets and distribution keys were used and, at best, individual services were attributed to the originator in the enterprise, different consumption costs are now incurred in each monthly billing. Often, however, accounting and controlling in companies are not prepared for precisely this. A monthly billing of a hyperscaler can quickly amount to several thousand items. So we need a clever logic that distributes costs across cost centers.

Companies therefore need to establish a new control loop. In doing so, it must be ensured that the cloud resources they use are actually used optimally, i.e. that there is no over-provisioning, the right provisioning models are selected, and services are only provisioned for the time they are in use. This feedback loop between controlling and the new role of the IT product owner is essential. The product owner is responsible for ensuring that his IT product is provisioned efficiently and in a resource-optimized manner at all times. As a service provider, IT faces the challenge of not maintaining systems in a status quo. but must actively adapt the power to be delivered to demand.

The end of silos, long live the product – dream or nightmare?

Traditional IT organisations are usually organised in specialist teams (silos) – i.e. storage, networking, server operation, etc. If you look at infrastructural cloud services, you quickly see that the boundaries between the classic silos are blurred here. On the one hand, many complex functions from the on-premises world are already included in the cloud service. On the other hand, the interaction between the services, e.g. in terms of networks, access management, databases, must be mastered. It is therefore necessary to bring the IT staff out of the existing silos and to diversify them. This is not always the case. Enthusiasm on the part of the employees, because – The affected teams must be closely supported in this process of change. After all, which company can afford to lose the already rare IT specialists due to insufficient communication and support during this change along the way?

But that’s not all. Alongside the new fields of knowledge, the fundamental way of running IT is changing. Where the credo used to be “never change a running system,” it is now a matter of reacting quickly to changes, constantly optimizing systems and adapting them to the ways and times of use, preferably in a highly automated way. The classic administrator must become an active controller and code developer. He or she is no longer solely responsible for a technical silo, but for the solutions – i.e. products – in one or more product teams. This means end-to-end – from deployment and continuous optimization to functional enhancement. The product teams, together with the responsible product owner, are flanked by cloud architects and developers for the technical designs, functional codes and automations. The result is a sharp shift in the focus of the operating processes. Transforming IT from an infrastructure provider and operator to a solution designer, consultant and active enhancer is not an easy task, but it is essential. Good change management is the key to success if the transformation is not to end in a nightmare.

The next part of this blog post is about transformation, innovation, and the right migration strategies for the deployment of cloud services.