Is Public Cloud more than another Data Center?

This blog entry will look at this topic in more detail and dive deeper into each potential answer and formulate a conclusion based on the discussion topic.

I started writing this blog after I relayed this question to a customer to bring them to our position and value proposition within the Cloud Service Provider marketplace. Two answers are provided to these questions, as a Cloud Service Provider we say “yes”. The 40 years of experience we have within traditional operations and maintenance of customer applications. The diligence, governance, and thought leadership provided by ISM Canada are paramount to the success of the cloud-centric delivery models. Some might answer “no”. The reason is that there is a complete paradigm shift often mentioned by thought leadership teams which represent the level of change and is aligned with the level of maturity of an organization. The answer has multiple dimensions, let's take a deeper dive into three key elements within the IT industry.

Dive 1- Do traditional service providers make good cloud service providers?

Traditionally designed IT incorporated a large customized process or set of processes, a culture which was governed by demands of the customer and offered no favors to those who spoke up. So, if you look at every service provider with this viewpoint your answer may be a resounding “no”. The answer being “no” causes some controversy.

If as an organization you are saying no, there is a voice within my head wondering if you believe if cloud services can make a positive impact within your organization or does it mean that you will be continuously impacted by the change.

Those who answer “yes” spend a lot of time trying to formulate reasons why the same value applies to the new mode of operation. Simply using the existing operating model to overlay with cloud services is not very common, but when it happens service providers are unable to keep up with the pace of an evolving agile customer. (as an aside: operating models will be covered in a later blog)

Customers who are looking towards a cloud journey are looking for quality services with experts with years of industry experience, and a unique flavor of modernized processes and delivery methods to boot. My answer is “It depends”. ISM Canada’s industry experts are trained and poised ready for cloud migration challenges, services and processes are modernized and the use of cloud technologies to develop innovative solutions for our customers is increasing exponentially. The organization is continuously evolving its progressive culture, talent funnels are widened, and service catalogs are growing, generally making innovation more visible. There is a strong agile methodology understood and demonstrated by our local teams, delivery management and senior executives within the organization and very strong talent acquisition/retention policy in place to provide assurances to you as a business. We utilize the new alongside the tried and tested in our approaches. By modernizing the monthly review cycle to become more retrospective, we ask 3 simple questions to all stakeholders on increasing regularity. What do we do well? What do we not do well? And how might we make it better? As an Agile practitioner, my role is to iteratively make things better, so the questions are close to my heart.

Watch this space for “Deep Dive 2 - As a cloud service provider, are the existing processes still valid anymore? Or do we have to get used to a new set of processes?"