The  Cloud  Computing  Challenge  

Cloud  Computing  is  one  of  the  fastest  growing  markets  within  the  IT  industry,  with  organisations  across  every  vertical  market  and  every  scale  of  organisation  benefitting  from  the  consumption  of  Cloud  Services.    This  has  spawned  a  number  of  providers  each  with  their  own  opinion  on  what  “good”  looks  like  and  very  few  offering  an  independent  opinion  on  best  practice  for  their  customer.  

Despite  the  rapid  growth  in  this  space  it  is  a  market  place  still  in  its  relative  infancy  with  organisations  seeking  to  understand  how  best  to  utilise  Cloud  services  and  the  impact  that  they  could  have  on  their  business.    These  organisations  are  aiming  to  gain  clarity  on:  

• The  tangible  business  benefit  of  Cloud  Services    

• Which  services  can  be  migrated  to  the  Cloud  

• The  most  appropriate  provider  for  their  specific  requirement  

• How  these  services  can  be  migrated  without  negatively  impacting  the  business  

From  a  business  perspective,  Executives  are  typically  being  driven  to  reduce  cost,  enable  the  business  to  deliver  new  

Nephos  Technologies  Cloud  Readiness  Assessment  Service  

services  to  market  faster  and  retain  high  value  employees.    They  focus  on  managing  and  delivering  services  and  not  an  asset.    Cloud  Services  support  these  requirements.  

In  many  cases  internal  IT  departments  have  little  time  to  innovate  and  drive  value  back  to  the  business  due  to  the  level  of  infrastructure  that  they  are  asked  to  manage,  infrastructure  that  can  only  grow  over  time.    Not  all  services  are  suited  to  Cloud  delivery  models  and  as  such  IT  are  asked  to  manage  the  traditional  infrastructure  as  well  as  the  Cloud  environment.    This  delivery  and  ongoing  management  needs  to  be  controlled  to  preserve  the  level  of  service  delivered  to  the  business.  

Different  parts  of  the  business  pull  in  different  directions,  its  natural,  but  this  shouldn’t  inhibit  your  ability  to  innovate  and  benefit  from  Cloud  services.    Without  a  strategy  for  the  delivery  of  services  success  will  be  hard  to  come  by  and  you  will  suffer  from  Cloud  sprawl.  The  most  dynamic  and  successful  businesses  in  your  sector  will  be  the  ones  that  utilise  Cloud  services  in  the  most  appropriate  way,  being  able  to  react  to  market  changes  and  new  services  quicker.  

 

How  Can  Nephos  Technologies  Help?  

As  an  independent  Cloud  Services  Broker,  Nephos  Technologies  works  in  collaboration  with  our  customers,  listening  to  your  requirements  (both  business  and  technical)  and  translating  those  requirements  into  an  overarching  Cloud  strategy,  and  executing  on  any  elements  of  the  recommended  strategy  should  we  be  asked  to  do  so.      

Cloud  is  a  business  rather  than  technical  solution  and  Nephos’  consultative  approach  enables  us  to  translate  your  overall  business  strategy  and  make  recommendations  as  to  how  Cloud  Services  can  support  that  strategy;  we  can  provide  the  following  information  as  part  of  that  review  process:  

 

Business  Assessment  

Our  business  assessment  involves  the  interaction  of  one  of  our  consultants  with  line  of  business  heads  to  understand  the  following  aspects  of  your  business:  

• Business  Strategy/Plans:  How  is  success  measured?    

• Business  Targets:    What  are  the  targets  for  the  business,  this  may  be  based  on  new  customer  acquisition,  talent  retention  or  acquisition  or  new  market  development  for  example.  

• Financial  Targets:    We  want  to  understand  the  financial  position  of  the  organisation  and  the  commercial  pressures  on  the  relevant  lines  of  business  to  reduce  costs  

• Application  Usage:    We  want  to  understand  the  core  services  that  your  business  utilise  and  their  priority  within  the  business  

• Business  Continuity:    What  is  your  process  for  business  continuity,  what  service  levels  must  you  achieve  to  ensure  minimum  impact  to  the  business  if  you  were  to  invoke  your  business  continuity  policy  

 

Technology,  Process  and  People  –  The  Key  to  Your  Cloud  Strategy  

 

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Technical  Assessment  

As  part  of  the  technical  assessment  we  consider  the  following  core  aspects:  

• Data  Security:    What  are  the  security  requirements  for  locating  your  data  and  for  things  like  encryption,  what  external  regulation  are  you  impacted  by    

• Application  Compatibility:    What  services  are  suited  to  a  Cloud  delivery  model,  how  easily  can  they  be  converted  and  what  is  the  cost  and  infrastructure  requirement  for  doing  so    

• Storage  Requirements:    What  are  the  current  storage  environments,  requirements  for  today  and  likely  growth  in  the  future  

• Compute  Requirements:    What  are  the  core  services  in  place  and  what  are  their  compute  requirements    

• Connectivity  Requirements:    what  are  the  connectivity  requirements  for  specific  applications,  they  may  be  able  to  be  “cloudified”  but  can  the  connectivity  support  it  and  will  it  affect  service    

• Service  Operations:    What  service  levels  are  required  to  support  business  operations  for  individual  services?  

Financial  Assessment  

As  part  of  our  review  process,  and  as  part  of  any  business  case  that  we  construct,  we  seek  to  understand  the  cost  impact  for  the  business.    We  assess  some  key  cost  components  and  compare  those  to  the  likely  cost  of  delivering  like  for  like  services  in  the  Cloud  

• Capital  Expenditure  Review  –  review  of  the  current  cost  base  and  cost  of  expansion  in  line  with  projected  growth  

• Operational  Expenditure  Review  –  review  of  the  current  OPEX  cost  base,  projected  future  cost  base  

• Environmental  Expenditure  Review  –  what  is  the  current  environmental  footprint  of  the  existing  infrastructure  and  the  projected  growth  of  the  infrastructure    

 

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Our  findings  are  then  presented  to  you  in  a  management  report,  which  is  yours  to  own  and  do  with  as  you  see  fit,  but  Nephos  Technologies  also  has  the  ability  to  execute  against  your  recommended  strategy  and  support  you  in  the  migration  to  Cloud..  

Summary    

Nephos  Technologies  provides  our  customers  with  an  independent  view  of  your  current  infrastructure,  the  opportunity  that  Cloud  Services  provides  specific  to  your  business  and  the  potential  delivery  route  to  execute  on  that  plan.    Our  engagement  considers  the  business,  technical  and  financial  aspects  of  your  journey  to  the  Cloud  to  give  a  rounded  strategy  with  true  business  benefits.  

 

Nephos  Technologies  will  provide  a  free  of  charge  2-­‐hour  workshop  to  understand  your  requirements  and  to  begin  this  process.    For  more  information  contact  us  on  sales@nephostechnologies.com  

 

 

Nephos  Technologies  Suite  18250,  Lower  Ground  Floor,  145-­‐157  St  John  Street,  London,  EC1V  4PW  

www.nephostechnologies.com