Selecting a Cloud Automation Solution: The Limitations of Inflexible Tools

The Limitations of Inflexible Tools

You have decided to consider off-the-shelf cloud automation solution.  The next challenge is finding software that is flexible enough to meet your needs but can be deployed quickly, demonstrating value to the business.

Time-to-value of your cloud automation solution is critical to achieving management and business support for continued investment in your “as-a-service” delivery framework.  However, if the solution does not meet the needs of the business, just because it is deployed quickly does not guarantee adoption.

Inflexible Cloud Automation Tools

There are many cloud automation solutions out there that advertise simple, easy and quick cloud deployments.  Many of these solutions were built for a specific problem like lab management; they have prescribed processes, limited interoperability, and lack extensibility features that are needed to adapt to more broad scale deployment requirements. Other tools are focused exclusively on automating infrastructure services for their specific infrastructure. 

Any cloud automation solution which requires drastic changes to existing management tools, infrastructure components, or operational processes will result in both additional capital costs required to replace existing technology as well as additional investment in people to be able to use this new technology and processes.  The other challenge is that your company will likely not be able to achieve the savings you have envisioned because the automation solution will not meet the needs of the various lines of business.  

These businesses will stay with their current manual process or look to public cloud solutions to meet their needs before they leverage yours, if given the choice (or if they don't get caught).   The other alternative is that each group will implement a completely different cloud automation solution which dodges the potential for the operational scalability they could have with a single integrated solution.

As you ponder your cloud automation decision, simple, quick and easy alone does not always achieve the best long term results.  That simplicity needs to be coupled with flexibility and scalability if you wish to satisfy the needs of your business.  

In our next blog post on selecting a cloud automation solution, we will explore why flexibility is an important attribute and what capabilities you should be looking for.

Watch this IT Private Cloud – Exceeding Expectations video (2:28 min)

--Courtesy of Rich Bourdeau, VMware.