Fear of loss of control in the cloud or cost explosions, unclear role allocation and uncertainties related to service ownership: In this blog post, IT service providers learn which hurdles they have to overcome when controlling cloud infrastructures.
diverto is an IT systems integrator from the Bern region that had operated two data centers of its own until a few years ago. "However, diverto realized that service ownership of the network, data center and hardware was far too large and far too expensive, i.e. it tied up too many resources on the bottom line. That's why diverto decided to outsource the entire infrastructure and have it operated by Xelon," reports Xelon CEO and Swiss cloud pioneer Michael Dudli.
Like diverto, more and more IT service providers are procuring cloud services. Here, an external partner provides a highly available, stable and scalable cloud infrastructure. "In discussions with IT service providers, the topic of control comes up again and again," Michael Dudli knows. Find out more and read the full diverto case study here.
Loss of control through service ownership? IT service providers have these doubts
"Point 1 revolves around a lack of trust, or rather the building of trust, which of course has to take place first. As a customer, you are giving away your data, a lot of assets and important operational systems. It's important that you can trust your cloud infrastructure provider," Michael explains.
Would you like to know what requirements a good cloud provider should meet? Here you will find a checklist.
"Point 2 concerns costs, whereby it is often not yet entirely clear how billing now takes place in the cloud. How does it work with hourly billing, consumption-based pricing and so on? There is a great deal of uncertainty in this regard," says the Xelon CEO.
Point 3 is the loss of control in terms of service ownership. In the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) models, IT service providers hand over responsibility for the hardware and virtualization layers. With the purchase of IaaS and PaaS, these layers lie with the cloud infrastructure provider - with all the advantages and disadvantages. "The disadvantage is certainly the loss of control. You can no longer control every cable. Which in turn is an advantage: You no longer have to check every cable and install hard disks yourself. When they first come into contact with service ownership, many Swiss IT service providers are not completely aware of what it means for them. It is often unclear what they will or will not have to face and what will ultimately change for them," says Michael.
Case study: IT service provider diverto outsourced its IT infrastructure
At Xelon, we often hear the following questions around cloud infrastructure control when planning cloud migrations for IT service providers:
- Who controls and approves how many servers are created for which customer?
- Who has responsibility for the service purchased and who approves the invoice?
- If someone creates a server in a customer system or adds more CPU, more disks to a server in a customer tenant - who ensures that this is charged on to the customer?
- How can it be guaranteed that the process is correct internally so that the correct invoice is triggered to the customer at the end of the month?
In addition to the question of control in the cloud, recruiting problems or the costs of IT infrastructures are also points that are repeatedly raised in discussions with our customers. Our free e-book "The little cloud 101 for IT service providers" contains content on a total of 5 topics that are currently occupying IT service providers. Download now!
How can IT service providers manage control over cloud infrastructures?
According to Michael, there are three challenges related to control in the cloud, which we have summarized below.
"Point 1 revolves around lack of trust, or building trust, which obviously has to happen first. As a customer, you're giving out your data, a lot of assets, and important operational systems. So it's important to be able to trust your cloud infrastructure provider," explains Michael Dudli.
Would you like to know what requirements a good cloud provider should meet? Here you will find a checklist
"Point 2 concerns costs, whereby it is often still not entirely clear how now billing takes place in the cloud. How does it work with hourly billing, consumption-based pricing and so on? There is a great deal of uncertainty in this regard," says the Xelon CEO.
Point 3 is the loss of control in terms of service ownership. In the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) models, IT service providers hand over responsibility for the hardware and virtualization layers. With the purchase of IaaS and PaaS, these layers lie with the cloud infrastructure provider - with all the advantages and disadvantages. "One disadvantage is certainly the loss of control. You can no longer control every cable. Which in turn is an advantage: You no longer have to control every cable and install hard disks. When they first come into contact with service ownership, many Swiss IT service providers are not completely aware of what it means for them. It's often unclear what they're facing or no longer facing and what ultimately changes for them," Michael says.
"I think you have to get those three hurdles out of the way to have a successful cloud project. Because I am convinced - we see this with our customers, but of course also in larger-scale studies - that a cloud migration brings an increase in efficiency, more speed, improved security and easier scalability to the IT infrastructure," concludes Xelon CEO Michael Dudli.
Are you still unsure whether your IT infrastructure is in good hands in the cloud? Take the test here.
Simon Kilchmann
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Xelon AG Poststrasse 15, 6300 Zug Switzerland
