How increasing cloud reliance is
altering skills & responsibilities
Cloud computing could easily be nick-named
“the great transformer” due to the way it’s altering how companies operate
their businesses. A growing number of enterprises are seeking out cloud
providers to deliver and maintain infrastructure and applications, effectively
taking over many of the tasks that internal IT departments have traditionally
shouldered.
A
growing number of enterprises are seeking out cloud providers to deliver and
maintain infrastructure and applications
For IT personnel, the increasing reliance
on the cloud is resulting in a sea change of sorts in terms of the new
cloud-centric knowledge and skills they’re now expected to possess. In short,
as companies actively architect for cloud, IT must manage data in new ways;
establish and operate new public, private, and hybrid cloud environments;
integrate disparate cloud services with internal infrastructure and
applications; and work more closely with their company’s business units in a
strategic capacity.
Here we explore the impact the cloud is
having on IT departments, the skills that are becoming more important for IT
personnel to possess, and the ways in which the cloud could reshape future IT
departments.
The ideal
Much evidence indicates that IT departments
in companies of all sizes will likely feel the cloud’s impact in years to come.
A 2012 Uptime Institute (www.uptimeinstitute.com)
study found that 16% of respondents had deployed a public cloud and 35% a
private cloud in 2011 vs. 25% and 49%, respectively, in 2012. Further, Matt Stansberry,
Up-time Institute director of content and publications, says contrary to the
notion that small and midsized businesses are currently better suited for the
cloud, analysts found that 32% of large companies pursued the cloud in 2012 to
meet compute demand while 19% of small organizations did the same.
Given that cloud adoption is occurring,
what does the ideal modern IT department look like, particularly in SMEs? Andy
Woyzbun, lead research analyst for Info-Tech Research Group (www.infotech.com), says Info-Tech can
provide recommendations for implementing cloud-related IT services that will
have competitive value to the organization, take responsibility for selecting
appropriate and cost-effective solutions, implement approved solutions, ensure
stable operation, and make service adjustments to reach business targets.
Overall, he says, the modern IT department guides an appropriate balance
between internally delivered services and externally provided services and
“takes full responsibility regardless of the choice.”
Analysts
found that 32% of large companies pursued the cloud in 2012 to meet compute
demand
Lynda Stadtmueller, program director for
cloud computing with Stratecast, a division of Frost & Sullivan (www.frost.com), says the IT department’s role
isn’t necessarily to implement and maintain technology but to explore and
assess how technology can help the business. “By offloading responsibility for
labor-intensive tasks like routine infrastructure maintenance to a partner, the
IT department frees up resources to explore the explosion of new technology
available on the market,” she says.
Similarly, Clive Long bottom, analyst and
founder of Quocirca (www.quocirca.com),
sees IT staff’s role shifting from being “Technical Gurus working on
implementation, patching, and upgrading” to offering advice on options
available, which will “require a greater level of understanding of the business
itself, and for the business, to have its own risk profile defined so that the
options provided by the IT group can be fit in with the profile”. If a SME
needs document sharing abilities, for example, IT would provide the information
(cost, risk levels, etc.) about internal and externally hosted systems on which
the company can base a decision. IT would then implement and manage the
solution with any integration, etc., as required, he says.
Coming changes
Companies already using cloud services have
likely undergone transformations in their IT departments. In the future, these
will increase, influencing size, management, funding, and other traits.
Woyzbun anticipates three key areas of
change for IT. First, IT departments must acquire solid vendor management and
business analysis abilities, “as IT is still accountable for the performance of
external suppliers and the communication of specifications.” Second, service
costs previously hidden in overall IT budgets will become transparent. “Making
successful business cases becomes more challenging, and there is increased
pressure to make internal costs more transparent to compare them to market
prices,” Woyzbun says. Third, internal staff member numbers will generally
drop, “typically driving an intelligently managed downsizing requirement.”
Cloud
computing creates more time spent to assess new applications and building
business cases
Stadtmueller, however, says while staff
decreases are often touted as a cloud-related benefit, companies she’s spoken
with aren’t downsizing but using staff more productively. “There’s less time
spent crawling on the floor to replace parts and more time spent assessing new
applications and building business cases,” she says. Another change, she says,
involves line of business managers increasingly budgeting and purchasing SaaS
[software as a service] apps without IT involvement. “Impatient LoB
[Line-of-Business] managers are happy to sidestep what they often consider IT
hurdles; and often the overburdened IT department sanctions or turns a blind
eye to this behavior rather than deal with an unhappy constituent,” she says.
LoB managers, however, are rarely equipped to assess business risks associated
with various SaaS services, she says. To support initiatives and protect the
business, she suggests IT establish internal app stores.
For Longbottom, increased cloud reliance
means “there is no need for uber-techies.” Implementing, patching, and
upgrading chores now fall to the cloud provider, he says. Internal IT’s role
becomes more strategic, involving selecting the right cloud provider and
determining if it can deliver on promises, offers a stable model, provide
offerings open enough to integrate with other cloud services, and more.
