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They will also have to think hard about whether they want to take a 'DIY' or managed services approach to the entire process. There are many ways to use cloud services, and the issues around data are some of the most divisive.
Allen Mitchell, Senior Technical Account Manager, Mena at CommVault Systems says that there are clear benefits to working with a managed service provider: getting a third party to manage data/storage for you enables you to focus on your core business; Disaster Recovery including testing is frequently offered as part of a managed service, and sending long-term, non-critical data to the cloud instead of keeping it 'local' can be a cost-effective solution that eases local backup pain.
Backup can be a huge drain on resource, so employing a dedicated specialist organisation to do it not only saves you time but increases the likelihood that it will be executed to a higher standard.
Many C-level managers may like to assume that backup is already being managed effectively, whether it be in the cloud or not, and they are often shielded from any hiccups in normal service. However, it's increasingly common for line-of-business or even project owners to make the choice for a managed service and keeping an eye on this is very important.
Mitigating long term storage costs
Choosing to go down the managed services route for cloud storage means it's possible to significantly mitigate long term storage costs, provided that some sort of effective pruning takes place for data that is beyond the scope of current governance guidelines or law. It means that archive data will rely upon cloud copies, instead of you having to manage multiple copies internally.
Outsourcing also enables an organisation to plan for unexpected growth and to counter escalating costs by buying into a 'pay per use' approach to data management and storage; the elastic nature of the cloud means it's much easier to scale up and down as required. This also means that over specification can be eradicated, though tying yourself to a service long term can have an impact if you unexpectedly grow beyond the target market of that service.
For IT Directors in the public sector, and IT Directors in general, who are being tasked with saving money without spending money, the managed services model is potentially the ideal solution. There is no capital expenditure to be found up front and the impact of IT on the overall budget can be managed more effectively in the mid-to-long term as an on-going operational expense.
For larger organisations, with a high degree of Intellectual Property to protect, for example, the big issue will continue to be security around where the data resides. Some data is highly sensitive and organisations are therefore reluctant to release it to a third party where it may traverse international boundaries, even if that provider is able to store and manage more data more cheaply than they can by managing it themselves.
Another critical consideration is the legal minefield associated with Service Provider terms of service. Few in IT management are also legal experts and complicated legal jargon and catch-all small-print can present issues should the worst happen.
