This document summarizes a presentation by Steve Bianciardi, a cloud solutions architect, about designing cloud solutions for customers. It discusses a typical day for a cloud architect including customer meetings, presentations, and reviews. It also covers key topics like assessing whether infrastructure investments are tactical or strategic, balancing customer wants with needs, evaluating workload criticality for cloud placement, and making the most of existing customer investments. The document provides tips for customers on making RFPs work for them, getting the most from service providers, competing with start-ups, being change-ready, and moving to outcome-based contracts.

1. Designing Cloud
Solutions for
Customers:
Steve Bianciardi
Solution Architecture Manager, Adapt
Cloud Expo 2015
Cloud Innovations Theatre
Learnings from a Cloud
Architect working with the
UK mid-market

2. 02 A Day In The Life…
Spin Class
Customer Presentation
Lunch (IF ONLY!)
Travel
Customer Call: Roadmap Session
Team Catch Up
Peer Review: Customer Proposal
Travel
Customer Meeting (Salesperson forgot to tell you about)
Vendor Roadmap Session
The PUB
Spinning session
Customer Presentation
Lunch (IF ONLY!)
Travel
Customer Call: Roadmap Session
Team Catch-Up
Peer Review: Customer Proposal
Travel
Customer Meeting (salesperson forgot to tell you about)
Vendor Roadmap Session
The PUB
Existing Customers
Roadmap sessions: upcoming business challenges
(& how Adapt can support)
Service/ system expansions & retirements
Additional service requirements
Project implementation updates
New Customers
Requirements gathering
RFP / RFI / PQQ responses
Defining solutions to meet business strategy
Solution presentations

3. 03 Proud To Work With…

4. Tactical vs. strategic infrastructure provision
Bridging the gap between what the business
wants against its needs
Assessing workload criticality & placement
Making the most of existing infrastructure
investments
Key Observations

5. Tactical Vs. Strategic?
Replacing aging
infrastructure
Running infrastructure on a
server uptime basis
Point solutions to business
requests
Tactical
Strategic
Align IT to business
strategy
Drive new app
development led by
business change
Deliver services
based on outcomes
not server uptime
Holistic view of
application delivery
48%
05

6. Balancing Wants & Needs06
How can we input orders
from mobile devices?
Can our billing platform be
updated automatically?
Can we reduce our cost of
sale?
#1 Ask your Exec for a clear view of business challenges
If not, make changes! If your daily tasks are not
contributing to the company
mission question its validity
Take time to measure your
projects against business
objectives
#2 Ensure you & your team are aligned to business goals
Ensure costs are defined along with the
expected return
Measure business case once implemented
#3 Deliver business cases with defined ROI

7. 07 Assessing Workload Criticality & Placement
Business critical systems & customer touchpoints
Billing platform
Payroll system
Revenue generation / high profile workloads
Non critical business systems
Email
CRM
Authentication
Non critical
Archive
Test & dev
Standby services

8. Making The Most Of Existing Investments08
Has the asset been fully
depreciated?
Is the asset supporting
business goals?
Would I use the same asset if
starting a business today?
#1 Assess the value of existing infrastructure
Does the cost of change outweigh the
investment?
Would a change in process give us competitive
advantage?
#2 Assess the business processes
Ensure valuable assets can be integrated with
new services
Single service management wrapper to cover
new & existing services
#3 Hybrid infrastructure

9. How to…
Make Your RFP Work For You
Get The Most Out Of Your Service Provider
Compete Against ‘No Legacy’ Start-Ups
Be Change Ready
Move To Outcome Based Contracts
Top Tips

10. 010 HOW TO: Make Your RFP Work For You
#1 ENVIRONMENTAL
What UPS/ generators service your
data centres?
What size of lorry can the service
loading bays facilitate at the data
centres? Do you have waste disposal
at the data centres?
How often do your change your
diesel or re-filter it?
Are your data centres Tier 3
specification or above?
Are your solutions delivered from
diverse Tier 3 data centres with
synchronous and asynchronous
recovery options?
What are the availability SLAs for
your data centres?

11. 011 HOW TO: Make Your RFP Work For You
#2 INFRASTRUCTURE
What vendor runs your compute
infrastructure?
What storage do you use? It needs
to contain 7,500 & 15,000 rpm
What processor do you use?
Is there a maximum vCPU / RAM
allocation for individual servers or
services we need to consider?
Please provide details of the
performance characteristics of the
different storage tiers available
within your infrastructure.
Will you proactively advise if systems
require scaling up or down to meet
application performance?

12. 012 HOW TO: Make Your RFP Work For You
#3 APPLICATION
Our sustained IOPS usage is 25000.
Can your solution meet this
requirement?
Can you supply database patching
for Microsoft SQL?
Your solution needs to contain
virtualisation
Can you support an active–active
application delivery from two
geographically diverse data centres?
Will you be able to add additional
application monitoring triggers to
our standard service?
Our application performance peak
requirements relate to our trading
periods. How would you help us
address this cost efficiently?
ACTUAL SMALL PRINT: The RFP is a tool to help you procure services that meet the needs of your business at
a competitive price point. The RFP should not replace your due diligence processes.

13. 013 HOW TO: Get The Most Out Of Your Service Provider
Provide regular
business updates
Engage
early
Partner,
not supplier
Strategy sessions will allow
your service provider
insight into your business.
This insight will allow them
to bring ideas to the table
based on their development
roadmap or allow you to
feed back requirements
Service providers should be
an extension of your
internal team. Invite them
to project kick off meetings
so they can bring their
experience to your
business, helping to speed
up delivery times
Work with your provider as
a partner and not a supplier.
This level of engagement
will allow your provider to
support you properly in like
with your business
objectives as
you grow

14. 014 HOW TO: Compete Against ‘No Legacy’ Start-Ups
New entrants to the market can make use of cloud providers without the
baggage of legacy infrastructure. How do you compete?
Leverage existing assets
within a cloud environment
(the best of both worlds),
don’t see them as a ball and
chain
Service management layer
that spans all your services,
Cloud, legacy, Hyperscaler,
on premise
Retire legacy services in line
with business change
activity

15. 015 HOW TO: Be Change Ready
Alignment
Current
landscape
Application
performance
Security
Ensure your
business and IT
strategy align
Don’t assume the
current landscape
is meeting your
business
expectations
Know your current
application
performance
How will your
security policies
move to & through
the cloud?

16. 016 Real Life Examples
Service
Availability
Dependent on
application
criticality
Variable
SLAs
To meet
trading peaks &
troughs
To meet
changing
demands
Business
relevance of
spend
SERVICE
COMMERCIAL
Service/
Security
Management
Budget
Alignment

17. Get in touch:
T: 020 3714 4666
W: www.adapt.com
E: domore@adapt.com
@The_Adapters
@domore_Adapt
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