When we think about consumption, our minds are more likely to focus on things like pizza and beer, rather than IT. However, with the advent of cloud computing, virtual environments, remote desktops, and elements like SaaS, IT is now more likely to be consumed through a monthly subscription than it is procured.
Cloud computing, among the most disruptive technologies in the last 30 years, has upended traditional procurement models by hosting many data center services virtually. In fact, did you know that analysts predict that “by 2020 more than 50% of infrastructure will be outside of the data center” and will instead be housed in virtual environments?
More and more infrastructure services are moving outside of physical data centers and are being run in the cloud. This shift, while disruptive, offers many benefits to federal agencies and enterprises alike, such as flexibility and scalability, in addition to significant cost and time savings.
Conventionally, procurement was a long drawn-out process filled with RFQs, intricate planning stages and implementing large hardware components. With cloud, services such as voice, email and video are available in software versions that are less costly in initial investment with substantially less set-up time. These factors in and of themselves save organizations significant capital.
For those working in managed services this shift in procurement is a game changer, enabling us greater efficiency in a more easily scaled model. For example, if a partner has migrated their email services to the cloud and find that they need access for 100 new email users, the organization can quickly and efficiently scale to carry a larger email load. Should an organization need to scale back on certain services that can also happen quickly in the consumption model.
At the end of the day, when we think about consumption, our minds don’t go instantly to technology …yet. But, by adopting digital technologies, enterprises as well as federal agencies can benefit from a fully incorporated system that is efficient, flexible and scalable.
Given the added efficiency that cloud technologies offer, it is evident that cloud has paved the way for dramatic shifts in not just the technology itself, but how we procure and consume it.
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