Logicalis,
an international IT solutions and managed services provider, is warning
CIOs about an emerging - and alarming - new trend in IT: Cloud Sprawl.
Lured by easy-to-purchase and quick-to-install cloud applications,
individual departments are finding and deploying their own cloud
solutions.
CIOs don't have to look too far today
to see the effects of this bring-your-own-cloud (BYOC) movement
-employees are tapping into free Google Drive space, free Dropbox space,
and free Box.com space -giving themselves more than enough online room
to store confidential customer sales and other mission-critical data
outside the company firewall and outside of IT's control. Inexpensive
cloud applications that don't require corporate approval are walking
through the door unchecked as well -from CRM to email to marketing
automation. Along the way, BYOC has given way to a new, repackaged
phenomenon dubbed "cloud sprawl" as poorly managed end-user cloud
purchases and deployments make for fragmented, redundant, unmanaged and
inefficient cloud-based outsourcing decisions with little or no input
from IT.
As Windows became widely adopted and
developers created applications specifically for the Windows OS, an
explosive number of physical servers were needed to run individual
applications on a 1:1 basis. The addition of X86 servers for application
development, testing and QA, all running at low utilization, resulted
in a physical server sprawl that demanded lots of racks, power, cooling
and, in general, was an environment that became costly and difficult to
manage.
Virtualization offered a one-to-many
solution which, over time, resulted in fewer racks, less power
consumption, lower cooling requirements, less floor space in the data
center and a much easier-to-manage ROI. But utilization in virtual
environments is still hovering under 20 percent today because virtual
servers allocated to temporary departmental projects are rarely
reclaimed and reallocated when the projects are completed. As a result,
there is a tremendous amount of server space being underutilized.
Without the right management tools and processes in place, this problem
goes unrecognized by even the most experienced data center managers.
This leads IT pros to mistakenly believe they are out of space and deny
new departmental IT requests. Departments are forced to find their own
solutions, often leading them to adopt easily accessible public cloud
offerings.
"We've managed to move from physical
to virtual, which introduced virtual sprawl, and now from virtual to
cloud," says Kevin Gruneisen, senior director, Cloud and Data Center
Solutions for Logicalis. "But without proper management and strategies
in place, moving to the cloud in an unchecked manner will result in
cloud sprawl and a less relevant IT organization overall."
To
avoid cloud sprawl and its inherent dangers and costs, Logicalis is
helping CIOs to strategically plan and manage their cloud environments,
offering experts four important steps that will help mitigate this
looming IT crisis.
Four Ways to Avoid the Pitfalls of Cloud Sprawl
1. Consult:
Adopting any kind of cloud strategy must include a well thought-out
strategy; without proper planning, the cloud will become nothing more
than an extension of the problems it is being employed to overcome.
Find a cloud expert that can help identify and define the company's
needs, match a cloud strategy to those needs, and design something that
makes sense now and that includes a roadmap for the future.
2. Build: Create a customized
cloud solution - public, private or hybrid - that is tailored to the
company's specific business needs - cloud is not a "one size fits
all"opportunity. Using the cloud for convenience without a plan can
lead to many problems later. The good news is that organizations that
focus on systematically developing a cloud will complete all of the
steps they need to leverage all of the benefits that cloud computing
brings.
3. Operate:
Where will the cloud reside - in a public cloud or in a private data
center? Will the solution involve a combination of the two? Determining
where cloud solutions will reside and how they will be operated helps
control the otherwise unmanaged expansion of cloud resources.
4. Manage:
This may be the most important part of the equation. Someone must
manage the cloud that's been created to avoid the out-of-control clutter
that once existed in unchecked physical data centers as well as the
spiraling costs associated with that; the question is, who will manage
the cloud solution that's been created? Compare the costs and
efficiencies of managing the new cloud solution in house with that of
outsourcing cloud management to a dedicated third party, being careful
to identify all the resources that will need to be allocated to do the
job right.