Cloud Computing is changing the IT Outsourcing game, says Peter Dixon of Dimension Data
IT outsourcing is an evolving process, the number and range of specialist service providers to whom components of business’ technology could be outsourced continues to increase. From the early 1990’s when IT outsourcing first came into the focus, it has evolved through industrialisation of IT services, multisourcing, and now we have cloud computing.
Dixon, Dimension Data’s General Manager for Services Innovation, believes that cloud computing’s adoption by the mainstream has been enhanced by circumstances.
He explains: “The pace of cloud adoption is being fuelled in no small part by the lingering effects of the economic slump. With capex investments few and far between, utility computing and consumption-based models are words on everyone’s lips. Not only does cloud computing eliminate the need for CIOs to justify capital expenditure; it also eases the management burden associated with operating your own assets. This means that the efforts of scarce and expensive IT resources can be channelled into business-critical activities.”
While the advantages of cloud computing are well accepted and known, it has its own pitfalls.
The prospect of paying only for the services you use, dialling consumption up and down as business needs dictate, and avoiding being locked into long term contracts may be appealing, but there are further considerations to bear in mind: governance, billing and chargeback, and the need to co-ordinate the activities and performance of multiple cloud providers.
No single cloud provider can deliver all the cloud services that a business may wish to procure yet the greater the number of cloud providers you deal with, the greater the potential risk and management burden.
Dixon said: “If you are buying cloud services from multiple cloud providers, who’s going to oversee all the moving parts? Each cloud vendor will have its own reporting and billing mechanisms, which will make obtaining an end-to-end view of service levels difficult and time-consuming.
“Not only do you need to manage your new suite of cloud vendors, there’s also your existing, traditional IT outsourcing contracts and vendors to consider. Ensuring co-ordination and retaining control of this new ecosystem of sourcing models, technologies and providers is critical.”
According to Dixon, whatever combination of in-sourcing, outsourcing, and cloud-based services an organisation opts for, someone has to ensure that the pieces are working together effectively to ensure business service levels are maintained.
Dixon explains that often Dimension Data’ advice to clients contemplating the right path to the cloud is to begin conservatively. “There are a number of mature, very reliable public cloud services available: these can help you form the foundation for allowing your internal operating model to evolve to working with a third party.
“With this approach, it will be easier to transition more mission-critical applications out of a private cloud into the public cloud, without concerns that you are putting the business at risk.”
Dixon believes that in spite of the prevailing hype around cloud computing, it is in fact a step in the natural, ongoing evolution of the IT outsourcing discipline.
“Ultimately, cloud services will become commoditised to the extent that they’ll be just another part of the technology outsourcing ecosystem that must be deployed, supported and managed, albeit under alternative contractual and consumption constructs,” he says.
“Nevertheless, putting in place an actionable cloud roadmap and a having competent partner at your side will go a long way to putting your cloud journey on the fast track to success,” Dixon said.
