Delivering services through cloud computing is a high priority objective for many IT departments, even though nearly 4 of 10 IT managers say they’ve experienced a cloud outage, according to a survey from Kelton Research, commissioned by TeamQuest Corporation.
“With nearly one-third of respondents spending $1 million or more on cloud services annually, unplanned outages in the forty percent range won’t be tolerated by business leaders or their customers,” said TeamQuest Director of Product Management Scott Adams.
Many survey respondents believe the reported outages could have been prevented. Capacity management is sighted as one way to minimize the risks associated with cloud computing.
“Cloud, whether it’s internal or external, is here to stay and it has great benefits, but IT managers need to know whether there is sufficient service capacity to support growth or peaks in their workloads and still meet required SLAs, for example,” said Adams. “The IT team must play a larger role with the emergence of today’s dynamic environment. You have to ask the right questions and provide expertise and advice to a variety of constituents to mitigate risks.”
To help decrease the number of outages, Adams suggests a diligent business capacity management analysis.
Adams provided a short to-do list for business capacity management in the cloud:
- Evaluate cost/performance trade-offs for alternative infrastructure deployment strategies
- Determine the best mix of sourcing options to best meet business service needs
- Monitor service levels on cloud deployments
- Size and optimize cloud infrastructure to meet SLAs
- Understand how costs grow with increased volumes and workload growth
Adams advised that companies familiarize themselves with more than just the business side of capacity management. “You have to look at capacity management from the component, service and business levels to improve cloud implementation, for example.”
According to the survey, 65% of IT managers agree on the importance of capacity management in the cloud. Adams notes that proper capacity management is more important now as IT and the business rely on cloud computing to house business critical services.
