If you’re like many of your peers, you’re dealing with the pressures of IT budgets that are stagnant or being reduced, while your B2B infrastructure must continue to ramp up to support expanding business needs. This situation is leading organizations that have traditionally chosen an on-premise approach to consider the cloud because of the many benefits it offers, like agility, scalability, flexibility and cost-effectiveness.
However, there are a few misconceptions that are holding some organizations back. Your IBM B2B software team is focused on addressing these, so you can move forward with confidence. For example, we’ve heard some clients ask:
- How can I start a journey without a map? You don’t need to map out your entire journey, but you do need to map that first step. For example, a good place to test and build your own cloud expertise is by starting with QA, development and test environments where data isn’t as critical and impact on production is minimal. Taking advantage of Docker containers to reduce installation and maintenance time is also a low-risk/high-reward place to begin. Whether you opt for a public, private or hybrid environment, we offer a choice of migration plans so you can move data seamlessly.
- What if I’m not ready to lock in to a specific cloud service provider? You don’t need to. We use Docker, an industry standard containerization technology for faster deployments and the ability to scale up or down easily. All major cloud vendors support Docker. This allows you to choose a cloud service provider now and start realizing the benefits of the cloud. If you decide to make a change later, you will be able to deploy the same image to any provider.
- Will I lose control over SLAs and security? You will have just as much access and control over the software as you do today. You can also negotiate an SLA with your cloud service provider that encompasses the availability, security and performance requirements you need to meet for the SLAs you have with your customers. Setting the right ground rules can offer added peace of mind. Security can also be stronger in the cloud because you and the service provider share responsibility for security. Providers bring their own set of security capabilities and you can complement those capabilities rather than assume the responsibility for all aspects of security.
- Is the cloud really mature? Industry analysts report that because of the speed of innovation, the cloud is fast approaching maturity. In fact, in their “Worldwide Business-to-Business Integration Middle and Managed File Transfer Software Forecast, 2018 – 2022” IDC recommends companies, “Design and develop solutions to run as microservices in portable containers.”
- What if I am not comfortable with the public cloud at this time? Despite all the attention on public clouds, private cloud use cases are compelling. “Private Cloud In 2020: Defining The Future Of The Enterprise Data Center” by Forrester, finds that driving continued interest in private cloud are cost, regulation, location, process, and — for some — the absence of extraordinary events to compel public cloud. Public cloud is growing, and for good reasons, but it’s no threat to private cloud. They will coexist. Furthermore, private cloud will evolve over the next few years to meet modern enterprise data center requirements. The future must allow for multi-cloud decisions that serve both new development and systems-of-record workloads, with cost models that fit the purpose and scope.
Now that I hope I’ve answered some of your top questions, in part 2 of this blog I’ll discuss how you can start to take incremental steps towards the cloud and the benefits you can gain.
If you have any additional questions or comments on the questions above, please post in the
discussion forum.
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