Create a Provider Ecosystem
one of the biggest headaches of managing SaaS applications that
are intertwined with one another and with internal applications
is coordinating updates and fixing issues with one system that
might affect the others, chakkarapani says. “When one vendor
has an upgrade, both have to test before we can go into production. these issues are slowly starting to crop up,” he says, “and the
more [vendors] we have, the more important it is that we have a
good vendor ecosystem.”
Account for Multiple Hypervisors
look for an enterprise cloud management
tool that will support multiple hypervisors —
even if you’re only using one today, experts
advise. lots of companies have built their
virtual data centers around VMware but will
increasingly look to bring in other hypervisors to drive costs down and gain provisioning options that are more flexible as they
migrate to the cloud.
The more
[vendors] we
have, the more
important it is
that we have
a good vendor
ecosystem.
KarThIK chaKKarapanI,
IT dIrec Tor,
aMerIcan hospITal
assocIaTIon
Look for Help on Cost Management
the use of cloud resources, especially when
business groups are making some of these decisions, seriously
complicates the ability to capture and manage the total cost of it,
says Phil garland, a partner in the cio advisory services practice
at Pricewaterhousecoopers. look for cloud management tools
that incorporate financial engineering aspects of cloud services.
that’s a major differentiator emerging among tool makers, with
some tools enabling mapping against specified service-level
agreements, he says.
