PERFECTING THE CLOUD RECIPE FOR SUCCESS

It is no secret that the cloud has democratized access to technology previously reserved for only the largest of organizations, leveling the playing field. With it, the role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) has changed.

No longer is the CIO’s core focus that of ‘keeping the lights on’, and ensuring that technical operations function optimally. Today, the CIO is a partner to the business, driving innovation at DevOps speed and scale, and playing a key role in supporting the company’s go-to-market strategy.

Conceptualizing the perfect cloud approach is not an easy task, especially in today’s fast-paced business environment. Too often, business leaders spend a lot of time debating configurations, especially when deploying enterprise applications – only to find that the business has changed by the time they are done.

Thus, in this new cloud-driven world, the imperative is to move at the speed of business. This will ensure that organizations adjust and move beyond failing fast, to embrace “succeeding fast”.

A walk in the clouds

In the pre-cloud days, IT infrastructure deployment was a tedious and complex process. Monolithic applications meant dealing with multiple vendors and lengthy provisioning timeframes. Today, with the evolution of the cloud, ‘outsourcing’ software (Software-as-a-Service) to be delivered and managed by the experts, while you focus on running your business, is becoming the mainstream.

If a business realizes the need for additional computing firepower as a result of dynamic shifts in the industry landscape or a requirement to play less in the datacentre space, that’s where Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) comes into the picture. After the computing resources needed are determined, businesses can easily look at scalable resources, instead of being stuck with constantly underutilized capacities.

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) forms another critical component of cloud infrastructure, including components such as a database, analytics, integration, mobile, security, etc., that can be consumed on-demand.  Not only is the approach time efficient, but these cloud stacks can also help with building the extensible platform needed to support strategic business outcomes by lowering entry barriers and accelerating the go-to-market.

The hybrid cloud platform – a CIO’s key to cloud success

Achieving successful outcomes from the cloud increasingly involves taking a hybrid approach to deployment. Organizations need to be able to utilize different forms of cloud solutions that can best cater to their requirements while simultaneously meeting regulatory benchmarks, including data governance and evolving security regulations in the markets that they operate in.

The financial services industry, for example, has specific rules about how data is collected, used and stored. Oracle Cloud at Customer helps organizations in the sector enjoy the benefits of a public cloud, while allowing them to stay in control of their data and where it is located.

The secret in the “sauce”

Today, several vendors offer cloud stacks and solutions. So, how can CIOs choose the right option for their business, especially in a rapidly changing market that is moving beyond the cloud to incorporate advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and automation?

This is giving rise to a whole new category of services. This new autonomous cloud is underpinned by three core tenets; being self-driving (where it literally runs itself, eliminating considerable human labor by self-tuning, self-patching, and self-scaling), self-securing (including intelligent threat detection, remediation and automatic encryption) and self-repairing (enabling the system to keep running even as patching and maintenance takes place).

This new cloud platform infrastructure has the potential to positively disrupt business models - enabling reduced risk, lower costs, and maximization of a business’ most important asset, their data. In the longer run, the resulting ‘autonomous organization’ has the potential to reach an ideal state where manual processes for running day-to-day operations and maintaining core IT systems can be completed without human interference. Instead, manpower can be redeployed toward value-added roles, enabling companies to redirect revenue and focus on innovating amid changing market dynamics.

The Journey Forward

Already we have moved far in the journey to the cloud. Some years ago, even established companies were wary of the cloud; today, cloud acceptance and adoption continues to grow.

Witnessing shifts within its business and customer demographics, driven by the rising tide of consumer e-commerce, Indonesia’s leading express logistics provider, JNE is introducing the Oracle Management Cloud to manage innovative applications, including a Business Reporting System for e-commerce customers. This enables end users to see where their items are at each stage of their journey and provide JNE with end-to-end visibility of all transactions to ensure performance and response times for deliveries.

Evidently, this new approach truly represents a new era of IT, where things are finally made simple, business leaders have a clear view of all applications and most importantly, glean actionable insights from data. Modern CIOs are now leading the charge in the way forward for their organizations with this new, enterprise-grade cloud that enables them to focus on supporting business strategy and leave the techie ‘how to’ to the cloud service providers.

In this new form, the cloud won’t just be ‘as a service’, but at your service – providing unprecedented access and ease of use to CIOs and their businesses. Cloud and other transformational technologies will be further demonstrated and discussed at Oracle OpenWorld Asia, the industry's most important business and technology conference, happening in Singapore from March 26 – 27. Registration is now open: https://www.oracle.com/sg/openworld/ 

This article is written by Chin Ying Loong, VP, Cloud Platform, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines