Using the Cloud to Extend Current IT Infrastructure
Posted by Aaron Goldberg on February 21, 2011
Simply put, the Cloud is the single most attractive new platform option for IT infrastructure since the heyday of the PC in the 1980s. While any number of pundits and product management teams has taken the stance that the Cloud is an approach discontinuous from existing IT infrastructure, that’s an incorrect notion. The reality is the Cloud is the key to extending and integrating the current IT infrastructure to deliver fundamentally improved economics and service levels, and dramatically improved business processes.
Driving business benefit by using the Cloud to integrate and extend current business processes is the fastest way to a strong ROI. In point of fact, viewing the Cloud through the lens of using Cloud integration to extend current application systems allows us to deliver the two key IT goals: improved IT economics and better support for the processes of the organization, to enhance its results.
Cloud solutions that allow us to enhance current systems by adding more information, information sources, metrics, and inputs through the Cloud will be a common and rewarding place to start Cloud projects. The importance of these integrated systems at the heart of Federated and Customer-centric businesses cannot be overstated.
Yet, one of the most important factors that has to be considered here is to not hamstring the Cloud with the same kind of hard coded/hard interface approaches that were common in traditional EAI (Enterprise Application Integration). Given there will be a number of “partners” and different systems that will be integrated we have to use a more robust approach. (More on this in later blogs!)
Looking at the ROI and improved economics possible with Cloud integration and extension, there are two basic ways the return is improved:
1. One class of ROI gain is based around leveraging existing, known and documented infrastructure. Using existing systems, extended by the cloud, drives the speed of solutions, eliminates the learning curve for new products, and the ability to accurate forecast budget and resource needs based on actual knowledge of the known system, not estimates for new tools.
2. The second way ROI is driven by the improvements in the business process itself. The ability to drive business process integration at the business process level makes it far easier to drive improvements in business process. Using automated ordering/order entry as an example is illustrative. Cloud integration improves results through customer retention, order accuracy, and inventory management to name a few. Cloud integration allows you to leverage your current order management system, reducing the resources needed to drive this business process. There are other key business processes that make strong candidates for improvement through cloud based integration such as; ERP, CRM, Data Acquisition/Sharing, Business Intelligence, eCommerce, and Supply Chain Management.
With the movement to the Cloud, the opportunity to maximize the benefits and ROI is right there in front of us. It’s essential that we approach this thoughtfully to insure the best result possible.
This blog is part of Hubspan’s Expert Blog Series, featuring industry experts and analysts in cloud computing, integration, application architecture, and IT management.
Tags: Aaron Goldberg, business process management, Cloud Computing, Cloud Integration, Enterprise Application Integration
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