As cloud computing grows from being a small part of an organisation’s computing environment to becoming the computing paradigm, its impact on the entire firm increases. The path to cloud has many routes, with some companies slowly dipping in specific non-critical applications while others enact sweeping cloud migration strategies across their entire application ecosystem.No matter the path, there are considerations that will affect the success of the journey.
To address questions that will ultimately maximize the success of migration efforts, ETCIO organised a fireside chat with Sunil Soni, Chief Information Officer, Punjab National Bank and Dr Christopher Richard, MD & Chief Cloud Architect, G7CR Technologies as a part of ETCIO Cloud and Data Center Summit.
Sharing how the market has changed and how business technology leaders now view cloud as, Dr Christopher Richard, MD & Chief Cloud Architect, G7CR Technologies, said, “I see very advanced and mature discussions happening with the technology leaders. Today they understand the cloud and are able to ask the right questions and think in the right direction. I see an open-mindedness towards adoption, acceptance of cloud as one their needs.”
With a market having multi options in terms of cloud adoption, Sunil Soni, Chief Information Officer, Punjab National Bank shares his views on how banks should select one. He said, “There is no one size fits all scenario. We all have to go back and understand what is our strategy, where are we at this point and where are we headed. We have to look at our priorities in terms of the applications that have to be placed on the cloud.”
Richard emphasised on looking at one’s options and priorities.
He further added, “Enterprise banks had their data center setup and they also had private cloud in place so hybrid cloud for them makes total sense. Because instead of buying new hardware for expansion they could expand the workloads to the public cloud. This is good when you have a data center setup like most of the banks. That is why I think hybrid cloud is a good strategy to have mentioning you have a data center.
Cloud adoption and migration could turn into a nightmare for a company if not planned in advanced. Soni cites a few best practices for cloud adoption.
“Do your homework as to what all applications you have and secondly look at the investments you have already made. Because if you have made an investment for 7-8 years and if you are also looking at cloud as an option it could create an issue with ROI. Benchmark for any CIO is ROI besides efficiency,” Soni said.
Richard pointed out that the future is going to be wholly public cloud.
“Someday a MD of a bank is gonna say that he does not want the headache of managing the data centre. He would want to give that management part to someone else and focus on running the bank rather than running the data center,” Richard concluded.
