Cloud computing has revolutionised the way we do business. In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, it’s vital for organisations to align their cloud services with their business objectives in order to add value. NTT DATA’s Cloud Advisory services are designed to help you leverage your cloud infrastructure to maximise productivity, identify opportunities for innovation and create an agile, future-proof cloud strategy.
In this blog post, we’ll give you an overview of the three main aspects of the cloud that we cover in our comprehensive Cloud Advisory services. All three should be part of your cloud services strategy if your organisation is not only to adapt, but also thrive in a dynamic business environment.
1.Composability: creating an agile, responsive business
There’s a well-known saying that “the only constant is change” and that’s certainly true of the business world today. Organisations need to be flexible enough to seize market opportunities, respond to disruptions and enhance resilience.
Composability is a transformative framework which empowers organisations to construct, assemble and reassemble business elements, known as Packaged Business Components (PBCs) – you could think of these as being like Lego™ building blocks.
Composability is an essential principle in modern cloud-based infrastructure, aligning seamlessly with industry standards and providing highly available and redundant cloud resources which reinforce security and compliance measures. Leveraging the reuse of PBCs results in greater standardisation, accelerated delivery and a substantial reduction in time-to-market and overall costs.
However, integrating composable architecture into an existing infrastructure is not without its challenges, particularly in larger organisations. These challenges can include bridging the skill gap, dependence on proprietary solutions and, crucially, resistance to cultural and organisational change.
Following three key best practices should ensure successful implementation:
- Deliberately connecting experience and operations by creating connectivity across customers, partners and employees; breaking down internal silos to improve business alignment, and adopting an ecosystem approach to drive customer experience.
- Finding the right balance of proprietary and standard platform elements through a clear understanding of business outcomes, balancing platform capability, connectivity and control tradeoffs; isolating custom development where this is necessary, while eliminating wasteful customisation and prioritising critical needs.
- Leveraging composability and AI for real business results by replacing old monolithic platforms with composable parts to enhance talent retention, delivery speed and collaboration, and integrating machine learning and analytics into the infrastructure.
2. Sustainability that makes business sense: from FinOps to GreenOps
Sustainability is among the top concerns for today’s businesses. As well as addressing ethical issues, it also offers a number of tangible benefits, among them being cost reduction, regulatory compliance, market strategy, competitive advantage and innovation. Demonstrating commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR) goals and compliance with regional regulations and standards makes clear business sense.
However, it’s sometimes less obvious that integrating sustainability into IT practices can lead to cost savings. This requires IT departments to make the best and most efficient use of IT resources in two ways: guaranteeing business operations at the lowest possible level of environmental impact (Green IT) and at the lowest possible cost (FinOps). Sustainability is a long-term commitment which must not only be compatible with, but also enhance, business outcomes and long-term financial sustainability.
We refer to the combination of these two factors as GreenOps: a set of practices and principles which ensure the best long-term balance between operational and financial efficiency and environmental impact.
There may well be scenarios in which investing in sustainability can lead to an increase in costs, for example moving to a different region where data centres are powered by renewable energy. However, this can be offset by a solution which decreases both cost and environmental impact, such as shutting down unused virtual machines and carefully monitoring the use of resources to make reasonable predictions and set the best strategy for a GreenOps approach.
This results in an eco-economic balance, combining investment in sustainability with a long-term business plan.
3. Cloud Sovereignty: control, compliance and agility
Cloud sovereignty can be defined as the ability of an organisation to assert control, ownership and jurisdiction over its data, applications and infrastructure within a cloud computing environment. It encompasses three key areas:
- Data sovereignty, which deals with an organisation’s ability to retain control over its data and safeguard it against unauthorised access, ensuring good data governance and compliance with jurisdictional requirements.
- Operational sovereignty, which involves the effective management and monitoring of the organisation’s cloud infrastructure and operations while ensuring business continuity and regulatory compliance.
- Technical sovereignty, which enables organisations to run workloads and applications without excessive reliance on a specific provider, allowing flexibility in selecting and switching providers as needed.
Cloud sovereignty has a number of benefits which can significantly improve an organisation’s performance, including security, increased control over cloud assets; compliance with legal and regulatory demands; enhanced data privacy, and the ability to swiftly adapt and scale cloud solutions. These advantages, however, pose associated challenges arising from regulatory demands, complex cloud offerings, a shortage of suitable cloud alternatives besides hyperscalers, a lack of clarity when operating in different regions, and insufficient internal expertise.
By defining clear strategies, adopting best practices and partnering with experts such as NTT DATA, organisations can successfully navigate these challenges and reap the rewards of cloud sovereignty. With careful planning and professional expertise in data governance, operational control and technical flexibility, businesses can gain a strategic advantage in the fast-moving world of cloud computing.
How NTT DATA can help
As a trusted global innovator, NTT DATA employs over 140,000 people in over 80 countries around the world. We offer a wide range of cloud application and infrastructure consulting, system integration, architecture design and deployment services. In the landscape of cloud computing, we stand as a leader in helping organisations unlock their potential, particularly within the hybrid cloud, including the private cloud.
Our approach is based on the three areas above, with GreenOps forming the basis of a sustainability strategy which balances financial efficiency and minimal environmental impact, composability as the guiding principle for agility, resilience and innovation, and cloud sovereignty as the vital component which enables organisations to confidently embrace the cloud while ensuring both their autonomy and regulatory compliance.
Where others focus on multicloud solutions, what makes NTT DATA different is our ability to develop data centre (DC) business and offer private cloud capabilities. Our advisory services bring expertise in data governance, operational control and technical flexibility, offering you tailored solutions to align with your business objectives.
If you’re ready to harness the full power of your cloud platform, why not book a cloud consultation with us now?