What Project Managers Need to Know About Cloud Computing Stacy Taylor President, Red Mountain Services [email protected] Stacy Taylor • Background ▫ Bachelors in Electrical and Computer Engineering ▫ Masters in Engineering Management ▫ Has played every role on a project and enjoyed every single one PMs and Cloud Computing • Why project managers need this in their skill set • What is cloud computing • Types of cloud computing projects and how to handle them • Top mistakes in cloud computing projects What Is Cloud Computing? Who Cares About Cloud Computing? • Means different things to different people ▫ Consumers - all my data, all the time, on any device ▫ CFO - Pay only for what we need when we need it ▫ CIO - Outsource all or part of a data center, so we can focus on our business applications ▫ COO - Geographically diverse data centers for built in business continuity ▫ CEO – Isn’t that the thing my iPhone uses? Why Should PMs Care? • By 2015, 10% of IT security enterprise capabilities will be delivered in the cloud • U.S. government will accommodate external cloud services • Cloud traffic will grow from 39% in 2011 to 64% in 2016 • By 2016, three out of five data center workloads will be processed in the cloud Cirrus, Cumulus or Stratus? • 3rd party applications • Migrating existing applications to the cloud • Application development in the cloud Whose Cloud Is it Anyway? • • • • Amazon Web Services Microsoft Azure Google App Engine Rackspace Cloud Use of Cloud Computing • Companies who found the silver lining ▫ ▫ ▫ ▫ Netflix SalesForce Intercontinental Hotel RehabCare Group 3rd Party Application Project • A purchased application that runs on the cloud • Don’t want to run on a cloud? You may have to rethink that. • Watch out for version upgrades But it Sounds so Soft and Fluffy • There’s lighting in them there clouds ▫ Data at rest ▫ Data in transit ▫ Having your data mingle with your competitors data PM Takeaways for 3rd Party Apps • Security you took for granted when hosting now needs to be evaluated • Availability you took for granted when hosting now needs to be evaluated ▫ Cloud outages PM Takeaways for 3rd Party Apps • Adjust your RFP solicitation • Not structured in your solicitation? Ask a few questions of your stakeholders • Software already bought before you got assigned? Migration to Cloud Projects • Migrating an existing system to a cloud environment • All concerns from Type 1 plus some! ▫ Selection of a cloud is not as easy as you think ▫ Cloud vendors offer widely varying packages ▫ Existing data transition 1st Why Migrate? • Highly variable usage • Aging hardware • On demand test environment that matches production • Lower total cost of ownership ▫ Latest and greatest always at your fingertips What do PMs Need to Know? • Evaluate if there is a preferred cloud vendor • If not, cloud vendor selection will be part of your project • Impacts to existing application support ▫ Changes to build and deployment ▫ Possible changes to configuration management ▫ Possible changes to load and performance testing • Use Online calculators help evaluate ROI for project Online Calculator Custom Application Development • Everything from before plus ▫ ▫ ▫ ▫ ▫ ▫ SSDLC – Secure Software Delivery Lifecycle Determining Support Level Agreement Load test metric collection Security Performance and Logging Training for Development Team Security Configuration Management Load and Performance Testing Administration More Terminology • Buying a product that runs in the cloud is almost always SaaS (Software as a service) • The lure to migrate is usually Iaas (Infrastructure as a Service) • For new app dev, you're looking at IaaS and PaaS (Platform as a Service) Top Mistakes • Not taking advantage of cost optimization (Example: Prepay) • Unintentionally getting married to a cloud • Buying too big of a server • Not accounting for cloud outages • Not evaluating security requirements prior to delivery • Underestimating the time and effort it takes to make cloud adoption successful About Red Mountain Services • • • • Project Management Consulting IT Consulting Staff Augmentation Training • Feel free to e-mail me at [email protected] with feedback, questions or for more information
© Copyright 2026 Paperzz