Cloud automation is winning. Will your organization share in the prize?

3 min read

Jul 12, 2018 12:00:00 AM

If you’re an IT leader, you don’t need us to tell you that cloud automation has become the lifeblood of the future-ready enterprise. And you don’t need us to make you feel a sense of urgency around becoming a 100% cloud-enabled business. Unfortunately, your sense of urgency probably isn’t shared by all of your business colleagues. The rise of the cloud has been swift and dramatic enough to leave the average layperson blindsided by its dominance. There’s a common understanding about the virtues of the cloud, and that understanding remains completely accurate. Transitioning to the cloud saves companies the capital cost of buying and replacing hardware, as well as the added costs of personnel to maintain and operate those machines. Cloud computing gives the subscriber enormous flexibility in scaling usage up or down as the demands of the business dictate. Depending on the provider, cloud time can be purchased in increments as small as one minute, resulting in massive potential savings. And cloud-based businesses enjoy the benefits of dealing with companies that are all about constant innovation. With Google Cloud Platform, for example, businesses get the power and reliability of an ever-expanding private global fiber network that operates independently of the internet. On their own, the advantages described above have been plain enough to persuade even the most non-technical business leader of the cloud’s advantages. The trouble is, most businesses are using just a fraction of the cloud’s capabilities. In an age when more and more businesses are committing fully to cloud automation, resisting the call to join them is tantamount to risking irrelevance. It’s common to admire the success of born-in-the-cloud businesses like Netflix, eBay and Facebook from afar, with no sense that their mastery of technology can realistically be emulated. But those businesses are exemplars of cloud automation, and their full exploitation of the cloud’s potential is an approach that is more achievable than many business leaders realize. If you’re ready to start building a case for cloud automation, Pythian is ready to help. Here are three major points to aid in your argument:

Customers love cloud automation Most customers don’t understand the importance of automating routine system tasks and configuration control. But they do understand a great online experience. Automation allows businesses to scale up cloud environments quickly in response to seasonal demand or any other surge in business. That responsiveness means fewer abandoned orders, more positive reviews and more repeat business.
IT professionals love cloud automation IT leaders understand that a large-scale cloud transformation can’t succeed without automation. Cloud automation lets you move and validate changes quickly through your pipeline. It allows workloads to be shifted easily between different cloud environments, and between cloud and physical infrastructure as well. It keeps data secure by enabling the integration of security standards and testing right in the pipeline. And it provides the dashboards and reporting necessary for complete situational awareness.
Your competitors love cloud automation (or they will soon enough) For better or worse, upheaval is an inescapable feature of the digital age. In Dell’s 2016 survey of 4,000 executives, nearly half said they didn’t know what their industry would look like in three years’ time. A similar percentage expressed the fear that their businesses would face obsolescence within the coming five years. You can bet the anxiety in the C-suite hasn’t gotten any better since 2016. And so it’s safe to say that if your competitors aren’t fully automated today, they will be shortly. Whatever worries they might feel about a cloud transformation will quickly be overtaken by the facts: Compared to organizations with a data center or hybrid infrastructure, a fully automated cloud enterprise meets and exceeds customer expectations with service that is faster, more responsive and cheaper for the business to deliver.

Of course, technology is only part of the equation in a successful cloud transformation. The other part involves people, whether they’re financial decision makers or the personnel who’ve spent most of their careers in a traditional data center. To get buy-in for a full embrace of the cloud, you might need to start with a test project involving just one high-profile application. The success of one important application will help you make inroads into securing more funding and cooperation moving forward. When the decision is made to expand your capabilities in the cloud, consider the role Pythian can play in your success. We offer consulting support, along with managed services, migration services and application services, too. And we have strong partnerships with the top cloud vendors, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure. To learn more about how Pythian can help you get full value from the cloud, click here .

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Cloud automation is winning. Will your organization share in the prize?

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