Cloud offerings

An interesting article on cloud services to be managed with right technology resources by Gartner; https://www.gartner.com/doc/2366916/manage-cloud-services-right-roles

With the increase in cloud services, it is very important to pick up right technology resources to establish a well defined cloud space for your organization. This means that this cloud space is flexible in terms of data, but also is secured to protect from malicious activities.

As pointed in the article, the CSB (cloud service brokerage) role will be very effective in the organization that is promoting usage of cloud services. The three primary CSB roles are

1. Aggregation Brokerage
2. Integration Brokerage
3. Customization Brokerage

The CSB will be responsible to assess what type of cloud services a customer requires, and customer demands and requirements for cloud services.

As pointed out in the article, which i also agree with is that the people in CSB role need to be proficient in cloud technologies and services as they play a very critical role in defining the next steps that will take the organization from its current maturity level to the next level of engaging with new technologies. With the CSB roles, the next defining factor is cloud management platforms or CMPs.

According to Gartner, Cloud Management Platforms are integrated products that provide for the management of public, private, and hybrid cloud environments. CMPs are incorporated within the organization by IT personnel to deliver technical cloud services to internal customers. Since these platforms are managed in cloud, they offer a faster delivery of services thus lowering the overall cost of technology. CMPs work very closely with IAAS (infrastructure as a service) platform. 

In order to summarize, CMP alongwith CSB role in an enterprise can help an organization to be more efficient in engaging with new emerging technologies such as cloud computing.

Couple things that need to be accounted for while coming up with a CMP/ CSB model, referring the gartner article

1. evaluating CMP for a hybrid cloud approach

2. Weighing options as an organization for an appropriate cloud offering vendor.

3. can the CSB aggregation tools offer an expanded option of external cloud services to internal users/ customers

4. to implement CSB, CMP tools at the portal level