Part the Clouds: Take Next Steps on the Journey

At Dell™, we believe that moving to a cloud environment is not a single decision. Instead it is a process, a journey if you will, with as many possible paths as there are companies that embark on the journey. At each step on the road there are important questions to ask and critical decisions to be made. Which path you take will depend on the needs and goals of your business, the expectations of your customers, and the demands of your industry.

Dell has identified three major steps in the journey, and provides support for customers at each step.

Step One: Investigation Is your organization gathering information to determine if and how to get started with cloud? If you are a data center manager, your executive team may have asked you to find out more about cloud and bring them up to speed. If you are C-level executive, you may be wondering if cloud computing might fit with your business strategy or solve a problem that is holding back your progress. You may just want to know what all the hoopla is about.

Dell offers a primer, Cloud 101 [link to doc], which explains the basic aspects of cloud and defines terms that are frequently used.

If you need a more in-depth understanding of cloud computing, a shared learning experience for the executive staff and IT team is a useful beginning. Why shared? Because moving to a cloud environment is a strategic decision that requires matching the business needs to the technological possibilities. The business brains and the tech brains need to start from the same set of information.

For qualified companies, Dell offers a free half-day workshop that will allow your team to explore the basics of cloud, along with the benefits, risks, and opportunities it offers. We’ll also guide your team in an exploration of your company-specific problems and opportunities related to cloud.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact your Dell representative.

Step Two: Experimentation Has your company investigated cloud computing and decided to test cloud computing with a pilot project? Many companies start with a pilot project in a public cloud, to help them explore the benefits without making a capital investment.

For instance, you might use a public cloud to temporarily expand computing capacity during a seasonal rush. This

lets you meet a short-term demand without adding servers that might sit idle when the rush is over. An example of this is a university that needs extra server power during registration.

If your data center is running out of storage, you might use a public cloud for increased storage capacity.

If you have enterprise applications that are accessed from many locations, migrating to a public cloud and using integration software can unify your applications and allow users access to the applications from any location. For example, a salesperson might need to access the CRM while on a trip away from the office. If the application is in a public

Part the Clouds: Take Next Steps on the Journey

cloud, the salesperson can log on from a smart phone while waiting for a flight and get the information needed. Or human resources or accounting staff could access cloud-based applications from various regional offices.

Whatever project you choose, your first step should be to create a strategic plan for using cloud computing. Because the options are so varied, you need to make sure that your project will work with you current IT infrastructure and that it will be useful for future business needs. Careful planning at the front end can pay off in cost savings and efficiency down the road.

A good place to start for creating a strategic plan is a thorough assessment of your current environment. What does your IT infrastructure look like? How well does it serve your business needs? Where is your marketplace headed and what do you need to do to be competitive?

These questions may sound too global for a simple pilot project, but for any project to be successful it has to work within the context of both your company’s business needs and the demands of your industry. You also need to take a realistic look at the costs and benefits of a project. Take the time at the front end to choose a project that will be relevant to your business but which will not cause major disruption.

Dell Technology Consultants can help guide you through the process, starting with a comprehensive assessment of your IT environment. They can work with you to create a strategy that will best serve your business needs and financial position. They can bring to your planning process the experience of working with hundreds of large and small enterprises.

Our consultants work from a vendor-neutral perspective. They aren’t there to sell you Dell products and services. Their job is to help you understand where you are, where you want to go, and the various paths you can take to reach your destination. They can also help you design and implement your pilot project, and help you avoid missteps and wasted effort. For more information about a comprehensive assessment, contact your Dell representative.

Step Three: AdoptionHas your company assessed its needs, experimented successfully with a cloud project and decided to move toward a larger use of cloud? If your company is a large enterprise, this is no small undertaking. It can affect every aspect of your business operation, so careful planning and precise execution is critical.

Some companies choose to evolve their current IT infrastructure to a cloud environment. Others choose a more revolutionary, green field approach, building a new cloud-based infrastructure from scratch. Either way, there are important questions that need to be asked before you start.

Should you invest in your own private cloud data center? Should you outsource the cloud environment to a service provider? Are you willing to share space on a public cloud for some functions, but keep other functions separate? Should you move to an all-cloud infrastructure, or should you maintain some functions in your legacy technology? How do you ensure the security of your data? Which functions should be accessible anywhere, and which should be held within your four walls? What new business opportunities could a cloud environment enable?

These are just of few of the business – not technology – decisions that have to be made before you can adopt a cloud environment. The technology comes into play only after the critical business decisions are made. Once you decide how you want to run your business and what opportunities you want to enable, you can begin to match the technology to your specific business needs.

Dell Technology Consultants can help you navigate the wide open skies of cloud to find solutions that make the best use of your resources and offer the greatest opportunities for business success. Because our consultants are vendor-neutral, they won’t come to you with an agenda or a ready-made plan. Instead they will work by your side to provide guidance and expertise to help you find the plan that fits your needs.

Dell has invested in acquisitions and partnerships that give it an end-to-end cloud offering. All of our technology is based on open standards, because we believe it is in our customers’ best interests to provide solutions that offer interoperability with other vendors’ products. This your-business-needs-first approach makes Dell consultants valuable guides on the journey to the cloud.

To learn more about how Dell can help your company at any point on your journey to the cloud, contact your Dell representative.

For more information about any of our service offerings, please contact your Dell representative or visit dell.com/services.

Dell and the Dell logo are trademarks of Dell Inc. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products. Dell disclaims proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. © 2011 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. May 2011 | Cloud_TakeNextStepsonJourney_MiniWhitepaper.indd | Rev. 1.0 20110518HVAT