Building & Managing a Sustainable Cloud Service
Customer Perspectives
Tom Lamoureux — Risk Advisory Services Leader, Global Information, Communications & Entertainment, KPMG LLP — Another area that customers want to get assurance over or help understanding what the cloud service providers are doing after or before they’ll sign-up is what does the IT environment of the service provider look like. Can they provide the scalability needed? Do they have back up in procedure, back-up routines, back up procedures, and recovery procedures necessary to make sure that the customer’s data isn’t being lost? In addition, the cloud provider needs to think about the way they manage their cloud operations so that they can offer the scalability, the flexibility, and the reliability that their customers demand.
Kieran Lane — Asia-Pacific Chair, Information, Communications & Entertainment, KPMG Australia — The first thing is you have to seriously look at the way you use your computer infrastructure. So, if you are a user who relies heavily on day-to-day usage and is consistent, you many not even want to think about cloud. Cloud is really designed for high, on-demand computer input. So, what you’ve got, if you’ve big load, you can actually switch the service and they can actually be utilized all around the world. So, you really need to look at your business imperatives before you decide to go to the cloud. Another thing too is the transformation cost is quite significant because if you have already got a long-term contract with a provider at the moment, you are not going to break that contract and then put everything out in the cloud. So, you might want to let the contract run down and then transfer into the cloud and you might take a year or two to do that. So, the big question is: Why would you do it? And then, have a really good look at your business and decide what is the right answer.
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