2. Slide 2 of 4
The greatest trick the Cloud ever played was to convince the world it was new; when in fact we have been
using it for over a decade through web based services like Hotmail, Gmail, Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook…
⁄ Formally the Cloud can be
defined as “..the delivery of on‐
demand computing resources ‐
over the Internet on a pay‐for‐
use basis”
1
⁄ However, informally it can be
thought of as a service where
the infrastructure and/or
support services is owned by a
third party
⁄ Through the use of excessive
jargon and unnecessary
complexity; ‘The Cloud’
remains an area largely
unexplored by sourcing
professionals
⁄ These diagrams should draw‐
out existing familiarity with the
Cloud by highlighting
similarities between home and
small office networks
CLOUD SERVICES | WHAT IS THE CLOUD?
1. Source | Cloud Computing as defined by IBM | http://goo.gl/09rcEG
2. Network diagram heavily simplified to explain the concept of Cloud Services and not intended to be technically reflective of actual Enterprise architecture
Router
Switch
Switch
Modem/Router
Department X
Department Y
Server
Router
Switch
Switch
Modem/Router
Department X
Department Y
The concept can be easily understood
by drawing a parallel to ‘Fleet vehicles’
and ‘Maintenance Labor’
Fleet Vehicle = Server | Moving to the
Cloud is the same as leasing the vehicle
Maintenance Labor = Server Admin |
Moving to the Cloud is the same as
utilizing a contract labor firm as
opposed your own workforce
Server
Internet Protocol Security
(IPSec) VPN Tunnel
Basic Cloud Architecture
Basic Local Server Architecture Area in focus
4. Slide 4 of 4
Migration to the cloud will only yield a benefit if existing infrastructure and support resources are
underutilized and resulting SLAs are clearly defined and formulaically enforced
CLOUD SERVICES | SOURCING FOCUS AREAS
1. Data Center Construction was not addressed, as benefits can only be realized by companies at the early stages of building an infrastructure, which is likely to be a small portion of the intended audience of this publication
2. Sequential numbering not indicative of any objective ranking; names complied based on frequency of use by Kikentaiichi clients
3. Note | Publication not intended to be comprehensive; however, sufficiently informative to convey the difference in the Kikentaiichi approach
Suppliers Key Strengths
1 Flexibility in choice of operating system, programming language, web application platform, database
2
Interoperability and Familiarity may provide smoother migration and allows for exploration of a self‐
managed environment
3 High compute power, developer focused.; suited for rapid large‐scale deployment & big‐data analytics
4
Best suited for small to medium enterprises looking for fully managed infrastructure. Similar level of
requirements flexibility to Amazon
5
Configuration flexibility & production workload integration. Although targeting a wide customer base;
best suited for self‐managed medium to large enterprises
Cost Component Guidance
Administration
Large benefit only if current internal labor is underutilized; therefore first verify utilization prior to
migrating to a fully managed option
Productivity gain benefits pitched by Vendors is generally overstated and should be excluded during
benefit calculations
Network/Server
Hardware
Savings will be accretive if there is current underutilization, non‐existent or ineffective use of
virtualization, poor configuration and low relative buying power of ‘base server’ than Vendor
Hardware
Maintenance
More applicable to SMEs that have outsourced this function. Large enterprises will likely conduct this
in‐house via dual functional roles, therefore benefits can be rolled up into Administration
Power and Cooling
Only a benefit if cooling systems can be turned off or utilization substantially reduced i.e. Server room
calibrated to ambient or office mean temperature
Service Level Guidance
1
Target Time to
Repair (TTTR)
Preferred alternative to Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) as it
eliminates the skew from anomalous deviations
Group common repair tasks by complexity prior to assigning
TTTR to avoid over servicing fee padding
2 Service Availability
Don’t be blinded by 99.9%; Vendors will incorporate off‐
peak times to offset peak unavailability i.e. 30 day period.
Define calculation only during the timeframe for which it is
required by your corporation
Group services by criticality prior to setting availability
targets. Not everything needs to be available 99.9%
3 Service Credits
Expressed as a formula and applied as a discount on future
payments. Conduct a scenario analysis to ensure that this
benefit can be realistically triggered
4 Elasticity
Provisioning and Scalability turn around time; calculated
measure similar to ‘order fulfillment’ in any other categories
5
Security Audit
Policy
Include within the contract measures that address disaster
recovery, failover plans, intrusion detection systems and
audit reporting
Top 5 Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) providers2
Commercial Opportunity Areas1
Key Service Management Areas (KSMA)
As with any product or service there are also Distributors, Wholesalers,
Agents operating in this Category. Therefore, request full visibility into
the delivery model to ensure you don’t fall victim to the equation of
death ‐ = Margin + Overhead + Margin’
