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Cloud Solutions Alone are Not Enough

Will Huber

(Part 1 of 2: HCAF Introduction) The illusion that a cloud solution will, on its own, simply and radically impact a client’s market position and competitiveness is unfortunately all too common; ensure your cloud’s success with the Hybrid Cloud Automation Framework.

Many of our CDI LLC customers often request deployment and configuration advice for public, private, or hybrid cloud solutions for their own organizations, or on behalf of their clients.

All clients come with varying business and organizational goals which are ultimately attempting to resolve the following problems:

  • Total cost of ownership (TCO) being too high for existing infrastructure, silos inducing poor resource usage
  • Resource procurement fulfillment or turnaround times being too slow, causing teams to hoard and hold-on to resources regardless of their actual current requirements
  • General lack of visibility of resource usage
  • Inconsistency of environments which leads to increased downtime across environments, impacting revenue
  • Lack of available APIs for VM and blueprint deployment hindering the adoption of next-generation technologies higher up in the stack
  • Consequential lack of agility restricts companies’ ability to be more competitive in the market
  • The list goes on…

It’s valid to say that all the above can be solved by deploying/configuring a cloud solution. However, a cloud solution alone cannot achieve any of the typically perceived benefits. The industry often references the term “cloud adoption“, with the word adoption here being key. It brings connotations of adjustment, a way of thinking, following plans, etc. Typically, one doesn’t adopt an inanimate object to which they use; in most cases adoption induces adaptations. Adaptation is essential in producing ROI from any cloud solution. This adaptation, coupled with technology, is what becomes the foundation for transformation.

Along with mobile, embedded, and other disruptive technologies, cloud solutions can make or break companies, but to achieve their maximum ROI, the enterprise will be disrupted during the adoption phase. If it’s not, frankly, you’re doing it wrong…

Hybrid Cloud Automation Framework

CDI LLC’s Hybrid Cloud Automation Framework (HCAF) is designed with two main goals. The first goal, and most important, is to make them aware of the necessary changes that need to be made from an operational, infrastructure, and workload perspective. The second being the production of a design, roadmap, and requirements document for the solution that aggregates all information and aligns the client organizational goals and business drivers.

HCAF Goal 1: Understanding the Business

HCAF is made up of a series of workshops beginning with the analysis of organizational goals and business drivers. The workshop flow then increasingly focuses on the derived technical requirements to ensure the cloud solution satisfies the company at all levels. The workshops are design to take place over a period of approximately six weeks, during which all efforts are made to understand the following:

  • Your current organizational structure
  • Organizational goals and business drivers for deploying the cloud solution
  • Your current business, development, and technical processes
  • Your environments, platforms, operating systems, and tools
  • External initiatives that could be aligned with to drive cloud adoption and impact overall results

The point regarding the alignment of initiatives is of major importance in the framework. Examples of such initiatives include:

  • OS rationalization/consolidation projects; this doubles up with application re-platforming and consolidation
  • Network refreshes/re-architecting
  • Data center migrations
  • Business process optimization
  • Organizational restructures
  • And again, the list goes on…

All the above, if leveraged and aligned correctly, can super-charge cloud adoption and make the transition to the cloud seamless, even in the case where only simple alignments and/or acknowledgements are made. This is especially relevant in the planning phases of all future projects.

Beyond the identification of existing programs, the introduction of new initiatives to leverage the cloud more effectively in a broader sense is also of utmost importance. Whether this involves identifying parallel operation models, financial cost modelling, application migration planning or anything else, it is key they are identified and initiated where required. The exclusion of such initiatives is often detrimental to the success of the deployment of solutions at larger scales.

HCAF Goal 2: Producing the Goods

The process followed during the workshops is based on The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), which has been optimized for cloud. This approach emphasizes satisfaction of the established organizational goals and business drivers. The version of TOGAF produced by CDI LLC has been refined over the course of many engagements. This new model leverages the experience, innovation, and passion of its creators to define a solution with as high a clarity as possible for our clients. Furthermore, it allows us to understand our clients with enough detail for us to help them achieve their goals and drivers.

Your Own Private Introduction to HCAF

As an exclusive bonus to readers of this blog, allow me to give you a quick visual preview to introduce you to CDI LLC’s HCAF. The following diagram shows the three phases in the HCAF process:

HCAF

As previously explained, the assessment and workload discovery that takes place in phase one is crucial to the process. This phase provides a solid foundation around your business goals and answers the question, What exactly are we trying to improve by deploying this solution?

As we move to phase two we aim to have a solid projection of the level of effort required to deploy the cloud solution before we begin customizing it to your unique customer needs. We then typically move into the third phase where the customization of the solution begins. This is developed using an agile delivery model where two or three week iterations are defined and the following objectives are pursued:

  • Can we establish a solid measurable cadence or velocity and continue to deliver at that velocity?
  • Is our project flexible and successfully reactive to change?
  • Are we able to maintain a healthy backlog of future work items?

Agile health is a strong measure of the future success of the solution. Agility suggests that the solution will grow with the business and that new initiatives will be planned and aligned with future goals.

The HCAF process ensures that the end state of the project has a solution that meets business goals and satisfies organizational drivers at all levels of the business. In addition, and potentially more importantly, the key initiatives required for the business to truly adopt the cloud are planned or underway where necessary to ensure the ROI will be fully realized. Finally, the client will be positioned to tackle the next-generation of technologies both from a technical and business perspective.

Will Huber

Will Huber, Chief Technology Officer, CDI

Specializing in leading complex and often very large cloud engagements spanning multiple disciplines, Will Huber defines, architects, and evangelizes the future of cloud-based consulting services at CDI. His responsibilities include the development and delivery of next-generation Hybrid Cloud frameworks including cloud and platform maturity models, architectures, strategies, IT operations management, business process automation, automation, orchestration, and strategy. Will comes to CDI from EMC where, as Principal Solutions Architect for Global Cloud Services, he was responsible for leading delivery teams that provided complex Federation Enterprise Hybrid Cloud (FEHC) engagements worldwide. One of less than 248 architects in the entire world that hold the VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) credential, Will also holds the distinction of being one of just 31 architects globally with VCDX status in the Cloud Management and Automation track. In addition to his MCSA/MCSE 2003 education and training, Will is the recipient of over 26 certifications from VMware, Microsoft, and EMC. In addition to his corporate responsibilities, he is currently pursuing an advanced degree in IT with Western Governors University.