In part one of this series, I provided an overview of cloud computing. In this article, I will start discussing how to define requirements for cloud computing.
Cloud computing can provide many potential benefits in terms of cost savings and value generation to an organization. It can also enable significantly shorter times to achieve benefits when migrating and creating new applications to support business processes. However, organizations must chose carefully among varied architectural alternatives based on their degree of alignment with business processes and existing architectural constraints. I strongly recommend that organizations avoid jumping too quickly on the bandwagon to embrace cloud computing. It is critical to first determine whether available offerings present measurable benefits to your organization or project, and to consider the impact on other systems and processes of moving from an existing premises based product to a cloud based capability.
“Cloud computing” is the one of the most overused buzzwords in IT. Similar to many other new and emerging technologies, vendors are trying to cash in on the hype by over promising and under delivering. Not defining a clear and complete set of requirements for cloud computing is a recipe for disappointment.
Requirements are needed to ensure alignment with your business processes and compatibility with your system architecture. Developing requirements for cloud computing is similar to other projects, but also differs in many ways. In addition to functional requirements, it is necessary to define many types of supplemental requirements unique to cloud computing, such as:
- Governance
- Who will own the application?
- What governance structure is needed?
- Who pays for the solution?
- What are the responsibilities of IT?
- What are the responsibilities of the Business Unit?
- What operational mechanisms are needed to support the solution?
- Accessibly
- Who is responsible for setting up new users?
- Who will have access to the system?
- Architectural integration
- How do we integrate this into our existing infrastructure?
- How will we monitor performance?
- Deployment and test responsibilities
- Who is responsible for designing and testing the solution?
- Who is responsible for training the users?
- Data integration
- How do we extract data and import to our data warehouse?
- How do we integrate with our existing ERP systems?
- How do we integrate with our external suppliers?
- Security
- What are the security implications for our organization?
- Do we have any auditing requirements?
- Will the solution integrate with our single user log in?
- Compliance
- What are requirements for e-Discovery for legal compliance?
- Do we have any regulatory compliance issues?
- Are there any corporate compliance issues?
- Standards
- What corporate standards must the solution comply with?
- What, if any emerging cloud standards apply (e.g., DMTF, Cloud Commons, etc.)?
- User support
- Does our help desk have any responsibilities for this solution?
To get started with cloud computing, it is important to have a clear vision of what the end result is expected to be, what are the project constraints, what the business objectives are, and how cloud computing can achieve this. Organizations should start by answering questions such as :
- What business solution do you want to create?
- Why is a cloud computing solution/service is being considered?
- What value are you looking to achieve by using a cloud-computing model (lower costs, rapid deployment, new capabilities)?
- What set of cloud capabilities are required to achieve the project objectives?
- Are there factors that will veto the use of public cloud-computing services, given the current level of maturity?
- Do we have architectural constraints that would prevent us from migrating to a cloud computing model?
- Which resource requirements (storage, servers, number of users) are steady, predictable and needed over the long term versus volatile, unpredictable and/or needed for only a short term?
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