The cloud has outgrown its initial premise that focused entirely on infrastructure. Increasingly, it is an enabler and driver of innovation, writes Vishnu Bhat
Cloud computing has come of age. An idea—which started out by leveraging scalable and readily available digital assets to enable higher efficiency, speed of deployment and expanded utilization—has outgrown its initial premise that was built solely around infrastructure.
Although considerations of infrastructure scalability, virtualization-led savings, faster development cycles and private cloud-driven efficiency are still important, they are only a part of what the cloud can offer to enterprises; in fact, these things are, now, virtually hygiene.
Therefore, it is time that enterprises opened their eyes to see the cloud for what it is really – not merely an engine of efficiency, but a powerful driver of innovation. And there is enough proof of its potential: A bank extends its services to remote areas outside its urban branch network by enabling agents to access a cloud-hosted core banking platform. A soft drink manufacturer streamlines distribution through a combination of mobile devices and a cloud computing setup into which merchandisers input stocking and other information in real time.
Leveraging data
Besides fostering innovation, cloud also helps organizations leverage data better to make better decisions. Today, everyone’s talking about big data – which incidentally, operates on a cloud frame – and its impact on operations, data processing, and insight creation. The cloud has changed the paradigm of processing large data sets by enabling organizations to tap into big data that exists within and outside their four walls to slice and dice it faster, cheaper and in more minute detail than it was thought possible. Retailing organizations have taken the lead in leveraging the elastic computing power of the cloud to not only crunch structured data, but also mine unstructured information in the form of social media conversations and online commentaries about their own and competitor brands, consumer perceptions, user expectations, and more.
So clearly, the infrastructure-efficiency viewpoint has given way to innovate-to-achieve-the near-impossible today. Enterprises are gearing up for a future in which they will look at fragmenting their software and application workloads – which today reside in their traditional data centers – across multiple clouds and best-of-breed infrastructure – sometimes even outside their own setup. By and large, organizations are accepting this proposition as long as it is implemented within the safety of a private cloud; however, they raise the usual concerns around security, data privacy and the risk of regulatory violation, when presented with the idea of leveraging the more elastic computes that are out there, as a way to realize the true benefit of the cloud.
This issue is best addressed, in my opinion, by the best practice of using a solution that brings all the fragmented workloads – on the private and public cloud ecosystem – together seamlessly, providing the enterprise with a single, unified view of its entire operational setup across multiple clouds, and the way it is performing. Even better, such a solution can also make intelligent recommendations around which cloud is best equipped to deploy a new workload on, based on the configuration required. That being said, the key point is that enterprises must be open to the idea of participating in a cloud ecosystem of this kind, in the first place.
This discussion leads to another interesting thought: in addition to broadening their view around cloud computing, enterprises have immense value to be gained by changing the way that they approach it. Traditionally, organizations have viewed their cloud strategy through a cloud-centric lens: first experimenting with a private cloud, then maybe graduating to others like those owned by Amazon, Microsoft Azure or Salesforce.com. This perspective is somewhat sliced, and determined purely by that particular cloud’s capabilities. Yes, taking a cloud-centric view is, perhaps, the right way for an organization to get its feet wet, but it is very important that this subsequently shifts to an enterprise-based strategy. Because, the cloud is a strong and proven driver of tech-led innovations that in turn help realize enterprise goals.
However, when ‘cloud’ and ‘enterprise strategy’ are mentioned in the same breath, the pains of deep-rooted changes come to the mind. But executing an enterprise-based cloud strategy need not necessarily be a difficult journey. It can be as simple as developing a new or even just improved existing capability, through a cloud framework, for small but strategically significant change – with a holistic view of the larger business intent.
This need not entail grand plans for ambitious makeovers that entail months of rigorous change management. It can be as simple as leveraging the cloud to grasp the customer’s needs just before she does…Staying one small but crucial step ahead of competition…Creating processes that save a little more time or money…Getting one more advantage from existing technology investments…Or bringing a little more value to the partner ecosystem. These simple but significant steps can accrue to build a stronger and more resilient business organization.
In effect, organizations that take an enterprise-centric approach to cloud grow in their prowess and agility to respond to changing business dynamics. They leverage the cloud to enable the business to be ‘the last man standing,’ even when the economy runs into poor weather. And that, in my view, presents a compelling business case.
Vishnu Bhat is Vice President and Head – Cloud Services, Infosys Limited.