The shortest path to cloud success - your roadmap

1
THE SHORTEST PATH
TO CLOUD SUCCESS:
YOUR ROADMAP
EBOOK
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SLOW DOWN:
MAP YOUR PATH
TO CLOUD SUCCESS +2
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MAKE YOUR STRATEGY
A REALITY +3
chapter
1
chapter
INTRODUCTION:
ARE YOU RUSHING BLINDLY
INTO THE CLOUD? +
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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It’s easy to think you should rush into a
technology such as cloud, which offers so
many opportunities—and not just for your
enterprise, but also for your career. How-
ever, realizing the full potential of cloud for
your organization requires a well-planned,
strategic approach—a detailed roadmap—
that builds your expertise, credibility and
the leadership value of your IT department.
ARE YOU
RUSHING
BLINDLY
INTO
THE
CLOUD?
page 1 of 2 PREVIOUS NEXT
Are you rushing blindly into the cloud?CHAPTER 1
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1.1 INTRODUCTION (p.1)

This ebook gives you the key steps to create an effec-
tive roadmap that supports your business needs and
long-term career goals. Creating a roadmap can not
only help you lead your department by driving better
business results faster; it can also allow you to identify
and solve new demands around technology integra-
tion, skill development, security and other complexities
that might otherwise derail your success.
Are you rushing blindly into the cloud?CHAPTER 1
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1.2 INTRODUCTION (p.2)

SLOW DOWN:
MAP YOUR PATH TO
CLOUD SUCCESS
No matter what industry you’re in, building a
roadmap to cloud success requires answering
three important questions.
Keep in mind that these questions may be addressed individually or concurrently, but
all need to be factored into the development of your roadmap. To help you get started,
explore each section to learn how IT professionals in different industries are finding the
answers they need. Their challenges and considerations can provide relevant insight
as you map your own path.
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Slow down: Map your path to cloud successCHAPTER 2
What’s the right
cloud environment?
How can you build
credibility, support
and momentum?
Which workloads should
you deploy first?
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2.1 MAP YOUR CLOUD –Main

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RETAILTELECOMMUNICATIONS BANKING
WHAT’S THE RIGHT CLOUD ENVIRONMENT?
Custom-make your cloud
For the past several years, IT leaders have debated how cloud
computing will affect their businesses and whether it is best to
adopt a public or private cloud solution. While the pro–public
cloud crowd has long argued that the only way to go is con-
suming IT and related services as a pay-per-use model, the
pro–private cloud camp is quick to remind clients that enabling
private cloud capabilities provides the highest levels of manage-
ment visibility, control, security, privacy and physical proximity to
data. So what’s the real answer? It’s different for every business
and depends largely on your business goals and challenges, IT
limitations, and investment priorities. Take a look at the following
industries, their common challenges and how they solved these
challenges with cloud technology.
What’s the right cloud environment?
2.2.A MAP YOUR CLOUD –Question 1

A TELECOMMUNICATIONS PERSPECTIVE:
Maximizing business opportunities
For telecommunications companies, the cloud environment selection process is
strongly influenced by the scale and history of their existing technology investments
combined with the level of in-house technology skills they possess. Understanding
how these factors influence their cloud environment decisions can provide insight
for you as you develop your own roadmap.
What’s driving this cloud decision?
Significant existing technology investments
and in-house IT skills
telecommunications
?
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TELECOMMUNICATIONS
GOALS AND LIMITATIONS
KEY CONSIDERATIONS
CHANGING COMPANY, CHANGING CLOUD
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
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A telecommunications perspective
RETAIL
2.2.B1 MAP YOUR CLOUD –Q1 /Telco (Main)

RETAIL
page 3 of 11
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
When a company lacks the agility and flexibility to meet business opportunities
because of the limitations of its IT infrastructure, it may be time to consider the
benefits offered through cloud computing. Cloud can help you deliver technology
services quickly against a rapidly evolving marketplace.
Many telecommunications companies have made significant investments in data
center technologies and assets. In doing so, they have also developed many of
the in-house technology skills required for cloud. To maximize the value of all
those investments, their cloud roadmap begins in a private cloud environment.
In fact, many of these companies have become cloud service providers them-
selves, leveraging the early adoption of cloud technologies to meet the needs
of their own clients.
KEY CONSIDERATIONS
DIFFERENT GOALS MAY LEAD TO DIFFERENT ANSWERS
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
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2.2.B2 MAP YOUR CLOUD –Q1 /Telco (goal)

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TELECOMMUNICATIONS
KEY CONSIDERATIONS
Every company’s cloud needs are distinct, but there are some considerations
that every IT professional should think about when planning for cloud:
• Control: A private cloud can give you more control over your data,
mission-critical workloads and possibly security. When your data travels
across state and country lines, you’re at the mercy of their changing breach
protection laws.
• Compliance: A private cloud can provide greater visibility into the environ-
ment, making it easier for highly regulated industries to demonstrate
compliance.
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5.2.C INNOVATIVE SECURITY (fine grained - benefit)2.2.B3 MAP YOUR CLOUD –Q1 /Telco (key consideration)

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TELECOMMUNICATIONS
KEY CONSIDERATIONS
For most companies and industries, the roadmap to cloud will consist of multiple
phases that ultimately employ cloud capabilities in a variety of ways. IT organiza-
tions, such as those in telecommunications that have invested heavily in technol-
ogy assets and skills, may begin the cloud journey by transforming their data
centers to private clouds. But private clouds will not always be the right answer.
Although private cloud may be the right starting point in this scenario, other
companies may find that a public cloud environment is the better answer based
on other business factors or needs. For instance, if the business is migrating to
a new customer relationship management (CRM) or salesforce automation appli-
cation, it may make sense to use an off-the-shelf solution served out of a public
cloud. That approach can help the IT organization focus on transforming its
existing technology assets to cloud without slowing down other strategic busi-
ness initiatives.
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
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2.2.B4 MAP YOUR CLOUD –Q1 /Telco (different goal)

RETAIL
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TELECOMMUNICATIONS
KEY CONSIDERATIONS
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
As with every new technology, there are some important and common issues
that you should plan for, including:
• Security: Your team has to keep track of multiple security platforms.
• Increased operational complexity: The management requirements
of cloud computing become much more complex when you’re managing
private, public and traditional data centers together, unless you have the
right management tools.
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BANKING
2.2.B5 MAP YOUR CLOUD –Q1 /Telco (pitfalls)

A RETAIL PERSPECTIVE:
Prioritizing customer engagement
For retailers, optimizing customer engagement is a top reason for deploying to the
cloud. Yet many may not have the infrastructure investments or technology skills
required to begin the cloud journey with a private environment. Understanding how
these factors influence their selection of a cloud environment can provide some key
insights if you have similar priorities.
The need to engage with customers
quickly and innovatively
KEY CONSIDERATIONS
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
retail
?
A retail perspective
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BANKINGRETAIL
2.2.C1 MAP YOUR CLOUD –Q1/Retail (main)

KEY CONSIDERATIONS
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
The need to engage with customers
quickly and innovatively
retail
?
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
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BANKING
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OF IT ORGANIZATIONS
WILL PURSUE AN
INTERNAL HYBRID
IT STRATEGY.1
74%
2015
1 Gartner, “Hybrid Clouds and Hybrid IT: The Next Frontier,”
September 9, 2014.
BY 2015,
2.2.C1 MAP YOUR CLOUD–Q1/Retail (main) - popUp

For retailers, increasing application speed and performance, enhancing mobile
capabilities, and harnessing data to create a single view of the customer are
all essential to better customer engagement. However, general low levels of
investment in infrastructure and data centers can put these goals out of reach
by requiring capital expenditures and technology skills that go beyond the
company’s ability or appetite.
Rapid adoption of technology by consumers has created new shopping experi-
ence expectations, accelerating the pace at which retailers adopt and deploy
technologies. Driven to enhance the customer experience, retailers now deploy
technology at such a high rate that staff skills are falling behind IT innovations.
To ramp up their ability to capitalize on new opportunities quickly and cost-
effectively, retailers will likely begin their roadmap in a public cloud environment.
KEY CONSIDERATIONS
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
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BANKING
2.2.C2 MAP YOUR CLOUD–Q1/Retail (goals)

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BANKING
KEY CONSIDERATIONS
Every company’s cloud needs are distinct, but a few key considerations
are consistent when it comes to determining environments that optimize
customer engagement:
• Increased integration: You need the ability to integrate new applications,
such as mobile, with existing applications and systems. Although it may not
be critical at the onset, systems integration will be required before fragmen-
tation begins to hinder performance and flexibility.
• Compliance: Public environments can make it easier for businesses to take
advantage of cloud, but some trade-offs are required. However, customer
experience shouldn’t be one of them. Understanding the service level agree-
ments (SLAs) offered by a public cloud provider and how the provider ensures
they’ll be met is an important consideration when evaluating providers.
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
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2.2.C3 MAP YOUR CLOUD –Q1/Retail (key considerations)

KEY CONSIDERATIONS
For most companies and industries, the roadmap to cloud is likely to consist of
multiple phases that ultimately employ cloud capabilities in a number of ways.
Retailers, for example, may find that a public environment represents the fast-
est and most cost-effective way to take advantage of cloud initially. However,
as the organization builds the experience and skills required to manage a cloud
environment, new possibilities will be created that call for the unique character-
istics of a private cloud.
Many retailers may, in fact, ultimately operate within a hybrid environment,
using a public cloud to build and deploy applications that enhance customer
engagement and a private cloud to support existing systems and sensitive
customer data.
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
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BANKING
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
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2.2.C4 MAP YOUR CLOUD–Q1/Retail (changing company)

KEY CONSIDERATIONS
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
Some important and common issues to watch out for when making your final
decisions include:
• Application isolation: Applications all need to interact with one another
and share information.
• Overlooking workload impact on other systems: After workloads move to
the cloud, don’t lose sight of their effect on other information systems. The
more you understand the affinity of information flow and sharing between
applications, the better you’re able to create manageable chunks of work-
flow information that can move to the cloud.
BANKINGTELECOMMUNICATIONS
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2.2.C4 MAP YOUR CLOUD –Q1/Retail (pitfalls)

A BANKING PERSPECTIVE:
Balancing convenience with compliance
In banking, customer intimacy, choice and convenience are all top reasons for
deploying applications to the cloud, but doing so can be complex, risky and costly.
It all depends on the characteristics of the workloads being moved and how they
are integrated with other, often-customized systems of record and external parties.
Many banks are seeking assistance in determining which applications should be
maintained on premises or off premises. Understanding the key factors influencing
their decisions can provide some key insights if you have similar priorities.
CLOSE X
KEY CONSIDERATIONS
SMALL STEPS TOWARDS HYBRID
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
The delicate balance between
connectivity and privacy
banking
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A banking perspective
RETAILTELECOMMUNICATIONS
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BANKING
2.2.D1 MAP YOUR CLOUD –Q1/Banking (main)

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KEY CONSIDERATIONS
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
The delicate balance between
connectivity and privacy
?
banking
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OF COMPANIES REPORT
HAVING ALL THE CLOUD
SKILLS THEY NEED.2
14%
14
2 IBM, Raising the game: The IBM Business Tech Trends Study,
September 2014.
ONLY
6.1 SECURITY APPROACHES (p.1)
2.2.D1 MAP YOUR CLOUD –Q1/Banking (main) - popUp

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Like so many other organizations, banks want to connect with customers directly
and are rapidly taking advantage of customer-facing technologies, such as mobile
apps, to drive customer engagement. But they have to balance their desire for
customer intimacy with their industry’s stringent privacy standards and regula-
tions. A cloud strategy based on a hybrid environment—private to ensure that
sensitive customer data is protected and public to rapidly develop new customer-
facing applications—allows them to address both critical business needs.
KEY CONSIDERATIONS
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
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2.5.D2 MAP YOUR CLOUD –Q1/Banking (goals)

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KEY CONSIDERATIONS
Every company’s cloud needs are distinct, but a few key considerations are
consistent when it comes to increasing connectivity with customers in an
existing environment within a highly regulated industry:
• Convenience and compliance: Banks and other organizations want all
the mobile opportunities the public cloud offers but want to leave data and
sensitive applications within a private environment that offers the highest
levels of security and control.
• Upgrade of core banking application: Many financial institutions want
a core banking application that functions solely as a system of record and
can easily integrate into and support other parts of their cloud strategy.
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
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2.5.D3 MAP YOUR CLOUD –Q1/Banking (key considerations)

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KEY CONSIDERATIONS
Because data privacy is so critical to banks, they should focus on a private cloud
for high-risk customer data. In the meantime, to take advantage of the full benefits
of cloud, banks are moving nonsensitive, nonproduction workloads, such as
development and test, as well as mobile apps to the public cloud. The real value,
however, in creating an experience connecting directly with customers is in using
public and private clouds linked to systems of record and systems of engagement.
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
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2.2.D4 MAP YOUR CLOUD –Q1/Banking (small steps)

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KEY CONSIDERATIONS
POTENTIAL PITFALLS
Some important and common issues to watch out for when making your
final decisions include:
• Losing control over customer service: Business processes need
to be well defined, with clear delineation of responsibilities, contracts,
rules, fallback provisions, measurable performance metrics and SLAs
between parties.
• The need to upgrade IT skills: The design of a hybrid cloud environment
requires higher IT skills than are needed for a private environment.
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2.2.D5 MAP YOUR CLOUD –Q1/Banking (pitfalls)

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Which workloads should you deploy first?
WHICH WORKLOADS SHOULD YOU DEPLOY FIRST?
What’s hot and what’s not
As an IT manager, you’ve likely had to choose which jobs are
given priority access to essential computing resources. It’s a
common challenge that’s made more difficult when it involves
a new environment like the cloud. How do you decide the right
hierarchy of workloads to deploy to the cloud? Where do you
begin, and why do you begin there?
As demonstrated in each of the following examples, start by
identifying which applications will transition easily and give
you the best return on your investment.
BANKINGRETAILTELECOMMUNICATIONS
2.3.A MAP YOUR CLOUD - Question 2

Prioritizing back-office workloads
Even the smallest telecommunications company could have hundreds of thousands
of customers, which means they require a lot of computing capacity to simply keep
up with day-to-day data processing needs. By deploying large, back-office work-
loads to the cloud, telecommunications and similar companies can free up valuable
resources for mission-critical computing needs. At the same time, these less-critical
workloads aren’t the kind that will disrupt day-to-day operations, which means
there’s little risk involved in moving them quickly.
In general, some ideal candidates to deploy first include:
• Customer billing and payroll: These large batch processing workloads
demand extremely high compute capacity.
• Development and test: Nonproduction workloads such as these can help
speed innovation and delivery of value to customers with less risk exposure.
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BANKINGRETAIL
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2.3.B MAP YOUR CLOUD - question 2 (Telco )

Capitalizing on ready-to-move application functions
When considering marketing within a retail environment, application functions such
as mobile marketing, geolocation-based detection and customer analytics are great
candidates for fast deployment to the cloud because they’re already optimized.
In general, some ideal candidates to deploy first include:
• Mobile apps: They’re new, designed for the cloud and hard to predict from
a demand standpoint, making the flexibility of cloud ideal.
• Inventory management: Deploying these workloads to cloud can make it
easier to securely share them with supply chain vendors and partners.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
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BANKING
2.3.B MAP YOUR CLOUD - Question 2 (retail)

Focusing on value and flexibility
The cloud is an ideal opportunity for banks to build more responsiveness and
agility into their operations without sacrificing security or compliance. The key is
to prioritize workloads that deliver the greatest value without adding risk or disrupt-
ing core business functions. For example, by moving workloads that demand the
greatest level of flexibility, banks are able to curb costs while addressing business
and customer service level expectations. At the same time, the public cloud provides
an ideal way to minimize risk and cost while developing new services, such as
mobile apps for customers.
In general, some ideal candidates to deploy include applications without high
operational performance or customer data privacy needs, and with noncomplex
and nonstandard integration needs, such as:
• Business support applications: These may include finance, HR manage-
ment and corporate relations workloads.
• Analytics applications: These may include business planning models as
well as bank portfolio and treasury applications.
• Differentiating capabilities: These may include credit monitoring, pricing
and billing, cash positions, sweeping and pooling, and electronic bank and
account management workloads.
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2.3.C MAP YOUR CLOUD - Question 2 (banking)

HOW CAN YOU BUILD CREDIBILITY, SUPPORT AND MOMENTUM?
How can you create evangelists for
cloud—and your cloud roadmap?
To understand and realize the value of cloud computing,
organizations must lose the old view of IT as a support organi-
zation and view it as a leader instead, providing services that
support each department and drive business results. In turn,
IT has to market its capabilities and resources and continue
selling the advantages of moving to the cloud, such as simplify-
ing operations, driving revenue, increasing agility and reducing
capital expenditures.
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2.4.1 MAP YOUR CLOUD - Question 3 (pg.1)

Part of getting leadership buy-in is sharing quick and easy wins.
But moving to any new infrastructure is never easy; one slipup
could spell disaster for an organization, especially if it relies on
a lot of mission-critical systems. Ultimately, you can take the
following steps to come up with a list of workloads that would
provide some quick and relatively easy wins:
• Assess your applications and workloads.
• Build the business case.
• Develop the technical approach.
• Adopt a flexible integration model.
• Address security and privacy requirements.
• Manage the migration.
In general, lead with the solution—look across the business
and identify application functions that serve key business prob-
lems quickly and efficiently. Also, keep in mind that selling your
roadmap—cloud strategy—is just as important as selling the
benefits of the cloud for your organization.
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2.4.2 MAP YOUR CLOUD - Question 3 (pg.2)

Building your roadmap is a major milestone in the journey
to cloud. But, as you know, journeys like this rarely go
exactly as planned. You will likely experience unanticipated
obstacles and challenges. But, there are ways to minimize
the potential for unexpected setbacks and take advantage
of your growing experience to continually improve your
success rate:
• Assess the cloud deployment challenges, opportunities
and success rates in the marketplace.
• Evaluate and document the success stories, risks and
barriers involved in cloud adoption.
• Develop required skill roadmaps as a part of your process.
• Conduct “lessons learned sessions” after each deployment
and refine your methods accordingly.
MAKE YOUR
STRATEGY A REALITY
Putting your roadmap into action
Make your strategy a realityCHAPTER 3
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3.1 MAKE STRATEGY REALITY - (pg.1)

For more information on other cloud topics,
visit The Steps to Cloud Expertise Series at:
ibm.com/cloud/expertise
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The shortest path to cloud success - your roadmap

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