Overview of a BMC commissioned Forrester survey of 300 IT and Cloud decision makers.

1. Your Cloud Future Is Here
How IT Can Embrace The Business Demand For Cloud
And Exceed Expectations
What is happening in the cloud market today, and what to
do to ensure success tomorrow
Until fairly recently, it was widely agreed that cloud computing was to be the future
of IT, but also that it wasn’t quite ready yet for most enterprises. That future has
arrived. Cloud is no longer in the future for most enterprises; it’s here today. Cloud
adoption and spending continue to rise even as the expectations from businesses
and employees alike go higher and higher. Businesses are serious about using
cloud services to speed up processes, respond more quickly to changing market
conditions, and reach new customers.
What is different from the past is that today, if business users — your employees —
can’t get these benefits from central IT departments, they have the knowledge and
tools to circumvent IT and do it themselves. There is no longer any need for users
to wait for IT departments to evaluate their request, procure and install hardware,
configure it, and finally release it to them. Users can obtain service in minutes, using
nothing more technical than their credit cards.
In the past, IT leaders have had three options: Ignore cloud, block it, or embrace
it. The first two options are now off the table — the cloud ship has sailed. IT
departments can no longer view cloud services as competition or as a threat to
their significance. The business has always relied on central IT to understand its
technology requirements and to balance speed and innovation against security and
reliability — it should be no different in the cloud. IT now has an opportunity to not
only embrace cloud but be the driving force for business use.
Because of their experience and understanding of user requirements, corporate IT
departments have invaluable knowledge to support business users in the selection
and operation of cloud-based services. Who better than IT can bring together both
technical and business requirements and make a considered recommendation for
the best approach in each situation? Evaluation should consider all aspects of the
proposed service: technical, financial, regulatory, security, and so on.
The new cloud services will need to be integrated into an existing IT infrastructure,
and this integration will require careful planning if the added infrastructure
complexity is not to become a challenge for traditional IT operations. Different
services will inherently be better suited to particular infrastructure offerings, and IT
departments will need to deal with that heterogeneity and advise the business on
how to take full advantage of their IT support.
It’s time for IT leaders to leverage their planning, management, and operations
skills to take control of cloud strategy and exceed what the business expects to gain
from using the cloud. A winning cloud strategy must
overcome any new operational challenges that stand in
the way of delivering what the business wants.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

2. BMC commissioned Forrester Consulting to explore the key elements of such a
strategy, so they conducted an in-depth survey on behalf of BMC, of nearly 300 global
enterprise IT decision-makers with responsibility for cloud strategy, implementation,
and operations.
Cloud computing is more than just the latest technology or outsourcing offering. To
ensure success in this new environment and with your own cloud projects, you need
to manage the transition and ongoing operation correctly. To help you in that process,
here’s a glimpse into the top four insights this research helped uncover. For the
complete study including the detailed findings, visit BMC.com/cloud
DO NOT CONSIDER THE PUBLIC CLOUD AS A COMPETITOR
TO YOUR OWN SERVICES
With business users accessing public cloud services outside of IT’s view and control, it is
tempting to view these services as competitors and attempt to ban them. Discover how
leading companies are learning to embrace these services as much as possible, but are
ensuring they are delivered in a way that is correct, secure, and compliant with relevant
standards and regulations.
DELIVER COST TRANSPARENCY
One of the aspects of cloud computing that users appreciate most is how easy it is
to understand the cost structure and how much they are spending (although it is not
always so easy to forecast future spending…). This contrasts with the opacity of internal
IT, where as a rule only roll-up numbers are available. The detailed report includes tips
on how to start showing costs and different options so that users can make informed
decisions.
ALLOW FOR CHANGE
Cloud computing requires a jump in the levels of automation in the delivery of IT
resources, which in turn means changing the process around that delivery, both in
execution and in tracking. Learn how companies are planning for this to ensure that IT
teams are aware of the benefits and do not consider cloud as a danger to their own job
security.
SET AN OVERALL STRATEGY
With cloud computing, a narrow focus on technical aspects risks delivering a technically
perfect solution that is not useful for its intended audience. Create a strategy ahead of
time which includes use cases and requirements, and build in milestones which are
valuable in themselves to help adoption and satisfaction on the part of the users. Learn
more about who is really using the Cloud – and where the demand comes from. Ensure
you’re serving all your users.
The most important thing to remember is that many other enterprises are going
through the same process and have similar questions. Learn from experts and
service providers about how to integrate the new cloud solutions into your existing
environment, avoiding disruption to business systems.
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For access to the complete study, visit
www.bmc.com/cloud, where you can
also find much more information on
cloud computing.