Issue link: https://insights.oneneck.com/i/1491095
LEARN THE CONCEPTS Basics of As-a-Service PLAY #1 Jason James, CIO of Net Health, believes the concept of delivering as-a-service has not only arrived, it is here to stay. "Whether it's on premises or in public cloud, a consumption-based model makes it easier to adapt to a now forever-changed work- force and be nimbler for future change," he said. "This idea of embracing a utility-based solution is now forever ingrained." In other words, the as-a-service model of public cloud changed everything, including organizational dynamics. Business units got a taste of speed and agility, and started circumventing IT to buy services and resource capacity themselves. This workaround, or shadow IT concept, has introduced new risks for CIOs to manage — including security, governance, and uncontrolled costs. IT wants to deliver the public cloud experience their users crave, and yet some workloads cannot make that transition and must remain on-premises for a multitude of reasons — data sovereignty, compliance, data gravity, or because some legacy, monolithic applications are too complicated to migrate. Those limitations have been brought into sharp focus when contrasted with the scalability and cost efficiencies of cloud. The traditional IT model was simply not built for speed, agility or faster time to market. It was, and still is to a large extent, mostly concerned with stability and availability of services. As-a-service not only removes complexity, it also speeds business outcomes and creates the cost efficiencies typically only seen with public cloud. Yet, it doesn't have to be all or nothing — a choice between public cloud or traditional IT. Now there's a third choice: on-premises cloud services, where enterprises can seamlessly deploy an edge- to-cloud platform in the data center or colocation facility, and only pay for the services that are actually used. "What makes this model interesting is it brings the idea of a cloud consumption model down to a traditional data center," said James. "You have that elasticity, where you can actually shrink once the given demand subsides." Now, with the as-a-service model, companies can get the same cloud experience everywhere — including in their on-premises data centers, at the edge, and in multi-clouds — and can operate, manage, and control mixed environments from one central location. < back