Key concepts of Enterprise Architecture in the Cloud
First and foremost, there needs to be an IT Strategy – how IT strategy can shift to the cloud is the primary starting block for any organization (Hayles, 2013). A portfolio assessment would analyze the current state, gather requirements for future state, design and outline the steps to reach all milestones, and finally, provide a reliable lifecycle to manage. Next, tracking and monitoring the migration and new cloud developments require IT performance management processes in place. These processes will help solve how IT can manage resources on the cloud by regularly exporting cost, utilization, access, and security data. Logical Architecture is the third and final concept – how can IT create the same logical architecture on the cloud is the initial point of entry and further work would expand upon these offerings to improve IT offerings and streamline business processes.
Information Technology Infrastructure Library
The combination of people, processes, and technologies together constitute an organization’s assets to successfully conduct business. The ability to manage these assets is vital in business operations, and thus, Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) comes into practice (ITIL Processes & Best Practices, n.d.). The main objectives of IT Service Management are to balance and optimize IT needs, costs, and quality, and ITIL is a core framework that provides interconnected processes for service support and delivery. Service support mainly concentrates on the management of critical operation processes, while service delivery concentrates on strategic management of the IT services. ITIL consists of ten processes and one function: management for incidents, problems, configurations, changes, releases, service levels, financials, capacities, IT services continuity, availability, and lastly service desk. These work together in the ITIL service lifecycle to provide the catalyst for forward progression of projects.
Integrating ITIL for an organization comes with a list of value proposition and activities. Some of these include improved alignment between business and IT, cost reduction from better resource utilization, new risk management processes, and better service delivery to customers. These will be discussed in detail in subsequent paragraphs. The ITIL lifecycle framework consists of five stages: service strategy, service design, service transition, service operation, and continual service improvement. By design, each stage is able to assist with all other stages and is process-oriented – one task leads to the next and is non-hierarchical.
It is also important to note what ITIL is not meant to do – ITIL does not provide a complete blueprint similar to a construction site; it is merely a framework that provides guidelines that can be adjusted based on needs. ITIL is also not a complete fix – it requires a culture shift at the organizational level to update and improve the framework over time. Lastly, it is not meant to control or govern, but to instead provide a foundation to build upon.
ITIL in the Cloud
ITIL can be utilized to improve current and future cloud computing frameworks in a variety of methods. Primarily, ITIL can assist with aligning needs of business and customers on cloud resources better than they could using only on-premise resources (Marquis, 2018). Improve the quality, performance, and abilities of IT resources using cloud computing is another important consideration. Reducing the long-term cost of the IT department is a third major factor. Lastly, ITIL best practices across general, service, and technical management areas allow for a consolidation of valuable information that was not readily connected before. The best practices of portfolio management need to be applied to all deployment models so that IT managers understand what resources are being consumed, who is consuming them, for what purpose the services are being consumed, and all associated costs.
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