I started writing a series of articles on the virtualization stack that you'd need in order to host something as big and complex (and non-cloud designed) as an enterprise ECM solution. Then I went quiet...not because I got shutdown or bored but because I realized that I was focusing on the wrong part of the stack for my profession.
If you are a regular reader of my Blog then you'll know that I tend not to talk about EMC-specific technology but in this case the topics I am going to cover don't make sense unless you understand that we have basically cracked the technical issues around moving legacy enterprise software into a cloud environment. We have a container that we call a VCUBE where we can host non-cloud-designed systems in the cloud. The VCUBE has been announced publically and the first customers have already started using EMC solutions in a limited deployment model.
This gives me the opportunity to get back into the area that I think deserves the most attention today:
| What are the business issues that you need to consider when moving corporate assets into the cloud? |
I am going to focus on the topics that you as a customer need to be thinking about as you move to the cloud. I’ll pick a topic at a time and expand on it in an entry and I’ll add new entries as I think of them. Just to set expectations: I might not have all of the answers but I’ll try to give you questions to mull over.
| Core Business Issues | |
| Service Level Agreements | Do you understand what you need from an SLA? Who is the SLA with? What does it cover? What are the implications of non-adherence to the SLA? |
| Pricing | How does the new pricing model work? Who ultimately owns the software? Everyone gets excited about OpEx vs. CapEx but is that ok for you? Maybe your OpEx budget is more tightly managed that your CapEx budget. |
| Liability/Insurance | Who is liable for what and do all the parties have coverage should it be called upon? |
| License ownership | Who is responsible for providing software licenses? For the core offering, 3rd party software, the OS, DB, add-ons etc.? |
| Regulations | Are you sure you understand who is obliged to adhere to a regulation? Does the service provider have their own regulations? |
| Exit strategy | Can you back out of the solution if it isn’t working out for you? |
| Initial Implementation Issues | |
| Services | Are you free to employ your preferred professional services companies or do you have to use the Cloud providers’? |
| Migration | Are you going to forklift existing data, processes, policies etc. into your cloud solution? If so, how’s that going to work? |
| Connectivity | Can you connect in your other enterprise systems efficiently? What about connecting custom clients? |
| Customizations | What level of customization (if any) will the vendor support? This can range from zero to unlimited but there are prices to pay across the board. |
| Day-to-day Management | |
| User (de)provisioning | Is there an unacceptable latency in how quickly users are provisioned and (more importantly) de-provisioned in your cloud systems. |
| Monitoring | Who is responsible for monitoring access violations, system performance, etc. |
| Location issues | Do you know where your data is? You might not care but some solutions need to know, (especially in the EU). |
| Backup, HA, DR | What’s your requirement for disaster recovery? |
| Patch management | Who patches what, when and how? Can you opt in and opt out? |
| Environment management | What environments are provided? Dev, Test, Production, Sandbox? What’s the connectivity between them, etc. |
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