Business Perspectives on Cloud Computing

30/11/2011 1John Rhoton – Digital Trends 2011

Business Perspectives on Cloud Computing

John Rhoton

Digital Trends 2011, AthensGreen ICT and Cloud Computing

30/11/2011 2John Rhoton – Digital Trends 2011

Agenda

• Assessment– Financial, Risk, Strategic

• Adoption• Challenges• Guidance

30/11/2011 3John Rhoton – Digital Trends 2011

Business Perspective on Definition

• Cost reduction– Virtualization, Multi-tenancy, Automation, ...

• Business flexibility– On-demand, Utility-pricing, Elasticity, ...

• Focus on core competency– Internet delivery, Off-premise execution,

Outsourced operation, ...

Cloud Computing is a set of technologies that help to achieve three business objectives:

30/11/2011 4John Rhoton – Digital Trends 2011

The right conditions can create market disruption for evolutionary improvements.

Two views of technology evolution

No pivotal innovation

THEN

• Application Service Provider • Web Hosting Service• Managed Hosting Service NOW

• Software-as-a-Service• Platform-as-a-Service• Infrastructure-as-a-Service

Multi-tenancy. Virtualization. Utility billing. These aren’t new – just a gradual evolution.

vs. Very disruptive impact

Improved functionality

Economy of Scale

Increased Adoption

Competitive Price

Accelerated development

Network effects

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Financial Assessment

• Software• Hardware• Facilities• Operations

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Risk Assessment

• Data leakage• Data loss• Service loss• Compliance• Lock-in

• Rogue clouds– Employee

dissatisfaction– Unmanaged

applications– Insecure data

• Competitive disadvantage

• Internal risks

Many organizations greatly underestimate the capability and motivation of the cloud providers to address these risks.They also overestimate their own ability to eliminate these risks from internal implementations.

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Strategic Assessment

• IT Support– Intellectual Property– Knowledge Management– Service Delivery

• Agile Enterprise– Core competency– Modular services– Ecosystem

O u t s o u r c i n g

M e r g e r s

J o i n t V e n t u r e s

H o r i z o n t a l I n t e g r a t i o n

V e r t i c a l I n t e g r a t i o n

N e w P r o d u c t s

N e w M a r k e t s

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Private to hybrid evolution

• Resource Efficiencies• Operational Efficiencies• Sourcing Efficiencies

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Candidate applications

Low risk, high return• Test and Development• Externalised applications– Isolate threats, malware

• Redundancy– Geographical– Organizational– Technological

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Design challenges

• Integration• User management• Reliability• Governance / SLAs• Security

The most common cause of failure is underestimating these challenges

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Concerns and risk mitigation

Risk MitigationData leakage

Encryption

Data loss Multi-source, backupVendorlock-in

Standards, multi-source, backup, exit strategy

Service loss SLA, audit, certifications

Compliance SLA, audit, certifications

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New trust basis

• Personal observation• Personal experience• Human Insight

Employees Contractors

Partners Suppliers

• Public verification• Contracts• Compensation Experts

Legal Counsel

AuditorsPublic Scrutiny

Physical SegmentationAccess controls

Virtual SegmentationEncryptionAccess controls

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Words of Advice

• Start early• Engage everyone– Users, HR, Legal, Procurement,…

• Be skeptical of the skeptics• Find Quick wins– Cheap, low-risk

• Prepare for the long term

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Summary

• Assess cloud computing from financial, risk and strategic perspectives

• Be prepared for disruption– Requires new trust strategy

• Don’t underestimate the challenges• Accept the inevitable

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John Rhoton

john_rhoton@symantec.com, john.rhoton@gmail.comxing.com/profile/John_Rhotonlinkedin.com/in/rhotonamazon.com/John-Rhoton/e/B001K8TFW0slideshare.net/rhoton

Thank you!