IBM Systems Magazine, Mainframe - March/April 2017 - 18
IT TODAY CHOOSING the Right CLOUD What to consider when using a cloud or managed service provider W orkloads are getting bigger. To manage all of this information and application data, businesses have a few options: store workloads on a company-owned server, tap the storage space of a managed service provider (MSP) or go with a hybrid model that combines a private, on-premises cloud with an MSP. Gene Rebeck is a Duluth, Minnesota-based freelance writer. So, how does a business decide? "There's no black or white, nor an absolute right or wrong answer," says Laura DiDio, principal, Information Technology Intelligence Consulting (ITIC), a Massachusetts-based technology consultancy and research firm. As an industry analyst, DiDio offers insights on the considerations and caveats organizations should weigh when deciding how to manage their workloads. Know Thyself Recent changes in IT and data storage affect the ways nearly all businesses operate their IT functions. The problem of sufficient storage space, for example, is fairly new, DiDio notes. In the early dotcom days, the internet seemed to easily accommodate all of the bits and bytes generated online. But in the past 10 to 20 years-the big data era-more workloads have been offloaded or outsourced into the cloud. "I don't know of any shrinking applications," DiDio says. And as workloads increase, many organizations are running out of physical space for additional servers. Some small and midsized businesses (SMBs) also have limited resources to devote to IT. Why build an on-premises private cloud when an outside vendor can provide the same types of services at a lower cost? To decide whether to keep all workloads in-house or move some of them to an outside MSP, determine what your enterprise needs, both now and in the future. Make an Assessment "Every organization, regardless of vertical market, must perform a thorough analysis and review of what its workloads look like," DiDio says. Assess your IT environment by measuring how many servers it has and how much bandwidth it's consuming. She advises constructing a three- to 18 // MARCH/APRIL 2017 ibmsystemsmag.com pg 18-21.indd 2 2/7/17 1:16 PM