Recommendations to maximize environmental cloud computing benefits
“The drivers for cloud computing can be summarized as cost, resiliency and efficiency”
Juniper Networks, Dhritiman Dasgupta
“One of the difficulties of using old dedicated IT infrastructure is owning legacy servers which are fixed to applications. The cloud de-couples operating systems from hardware”
Deutsche Bank, Marc Banks
Cloud computing offers firms the potential to combine financial savings with environmental benefits. Drawing on the detailed interviews as well as the financial and carbon reduction models developed for this study, the following recommendations can help maximize the cloud computing investments:
• Develop enterprise-wide strategy. Firms which have demonstrated greatest success in moving to a cloud based model have integrated cloud computing into the overall IT strategy. By taking a holistic approach, investments are appropriately targeted and rather than establishing an un co-ordinated mix of various cloud and non-cloud based solutions, targeted solutions are deployed which increase the efficiency of the business.
• Understand the IT estate. Creating a business case for cloud computing demands an understanding of the costs of supporting the different elements of the existing IT model. In looking at an IT application, the license fee may be highly transparent but the cost of the supporting infrastructure and the number of full time equivalents (FTEs) involved in the maintenance of the application may be less obvious, as well as the electricity cost of powering this application.
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• Investigate business processes. One of the characteristics and benefits of cloud computing is its elasticity which allows for the rapid provisioning or de-provisioning of services. Many firms have particularly high computing demands at month end, quarter end or year end. Where a firm experiences these spikes in demand, adopting a cloud model allows the firm to rapidly scale up and down as required rather than spending money maintaining servers all year round to accommodate these occasional spikes.
• Identify non business critical applications. Firms repeatedly indicate they would not consider a public cloud software solution where business critical data would be stored. At the same time, firms did confirm that a public cloud solution would be feasible for less critical applications. Firms should understand applications which are non business critical and investigate a public cloud solution.
• Harmonize employee behavior. Developers have traditionally used their own tools to develop new IT applications. This is not conducive to using a cloud based development platform which demands
consistency in the tools used. Firms should determine if it is possible to harmonize developer behavior so they all use the same tools thus facilitating a move to a cloud based platform.
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