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Ten Steps to Increase Your CEO Understanding of Cloud Benefits

By Kim Wright, Posted August 10, 2012
  • Ten Steps to Increase Your CEO Understanding of Cloud Benefits-
    The keep it short and simple (KISS) principle applies to the CEO. Understanding the benefits associated with cloud typically begins by understanding and agreeing on what a cloud really is. Software as a service (SaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as service (IaaS) are different cloud service models. To complicate matters, computer resources can then be on premises – or off premises – and can spread across private, public and hybrid cloud infrastructures.

    Keep the educational session relatively short with the CEO by asking if the AppStore has changed the way he or she consumes and use applications. How long did it take to set up a Google email account compared to an internal Exchange email address? As a last resort, just pose the question, “Should I continue to buy $8,000 servers that will take one to two months to provision and will be obsolete in two to three years, or should I look at paying a monthly fee and have someone else refresh and maintain them?

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Ten Steps to Increase Your CEO Understanding of Cloud Benefits

By Kim Wright, Posted August 10, 2012
  • 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
  • Ten Steps to Increase Your CEO Understanding of Cloud Benefits-2
    The keep it short and simple (KISS) principle applies to the CEO. Understanding the benefits associated with cloud typically begins by understanding and agreeing on what a cloud really is. Software as a service (SaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as service (IaaS) are different cloud service models. To complicate matters, computer resources can then be on premises – or off premises – and can spread across private, public and hybrid cloud infrastructures.

    Keep the educational session relatively short with the CEO by asking if the AppStore has changed the way he or she consumes and use applications. How long did it take to set up a Google email account compared to an internal Exchange email address? As a last resort, just pose the question, “Should I continue to buy $8,000 servers that will take one to two months to provision and will be obsolete in two to three years, or should I look at paying a monthly fee and have someone else refresh and maintain them?

With the introduction of x86 virtualization and the acceleration of cloud-based computing it is obvious to every techie that data center modernization is wicked cool, accessible to just about everyone, and beneficial to organizations of every size. Unfortunately, “wicked cool” and “beneficial” are terms that usually make CEOs cringe unless they are quantifiable with measurable benefits. The initial knee jerk reaction by any techie is to then explain how virtualization and cloud computing reduces costs, enables faster service delivery with better quality, and of course, how it makes the CEO’s life easier. This often prompts the CEO to just gaze into the eyes of the techie and say “OK, sounds interesting.” The disconnect often results in delayed or underfunded cloud projects because of the limited understanding of value, benefit, cost and return on investment (ROI) between the CEO and IT department.

IT admins understand how cloud computing can increase IT responsiveness and efficiency, reduce capital expenditures and operational overhead while providing greater business flexibility through an on-demand, pay-as-you-go model that provides infinite scale across multiple providers. It is IT's responsibility to educate and equip the CEO on the strategic benefits and most importantly, the ROI. An expert resource for this slideshow is Jason Cowie, vice president of product management for Embotics, a pioneer in virtualization and automated private cloud management.