Take Inventory of your infrastructure and its needs.
Getting started in cloud computing can be scary. The advantages of cloud computing are aplenty, but if there isn’t enough forethought, it could take much longer to get the ROI you’re looking for. With the right amount of thought and preparation, any organization can make use of the technology.
The best place to start is to get an inventory of your IT infrastructure, what you need and what you’re currently using. It’s always helpful in any scenario to figure your current costs of running your infrastructure environment, but keep in mind the costs that there will be to scale (as if you had the advantage of cloud computing). That’s a great way to get a feel for where you stand doing everything on your own (if you’re still trying to figure out if the cloud makes sense).
When I say to tally up the current costs of your infrastructure, I mean EVERYTHING that goes into running that IT infrastructure – the power, cooling, space, FTEs, training, anything that goes into making sure the infrastructure is running and working correctly. Once you’ve got that, make a list of what you need from your infrastructure and/or the cloud.
Do you need testing and development capabilities, a production environment, what kind of service level agreement do you need? What data or application(s) do you want to store in the cloud, and what are their needs? Does it make sense to have more than one cloud b/c your needs differ so between application?
Taking a complete inventory of you infrastructure and its needs is the best way to figure out where you stand and what kind of cloud vendor(s) is/are right for you (which is step two, coming soon.)
Getting started in cloud computing can be scary. The advantages of cloud computing are aplenty, but if there isn’t enough forethought, it could take much longer to get the ROI you’re looking for. With the right amount of thought and preparation, any organization can make use of the technology.
The best place to start is to get an inventory of your IT infrastructure, what you need and what you’re currently using. It’s always helpful in any scenario to figure your current costs of running your infrastructure environment, but keep in mind the costs that there will be to scale (as if you had the advantage of cloud computing). That’s a great way to get a feel for where you stand doing everything on your own (if you’re still trying to figure out if the cloud makes sense).
When I say to tally up the current costs of your infrastructure, I mean EVERYTHING that goes into running that IT infrastructure – the power, cooling, space, FTEs, training, anything that goes into making sure the infrastructure is running and working correctly. Once you’ve got that, make a list of what you need from your infrastructure and/or the cloud.
Do you need testing and development capabilities, a production environment, what kind of service level agreement do you need? What data or application(s) do you want to store in the cloud, and what are their needs? Does it make sense to have more than one cloud b/c your needs differ so between application?
Taking a complete inventory of you infrastructure and its needs is the best way to figure out where you stand and what kind of cloud vendor(s) is/are right for you (which is step two, coming soon.)
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