October 20198 IN MY V EWJOURNEY TO THE CLOUD-GETTING THINGS STRAIGHTBY ALEX KONNARIS, GROUP CIO, RMA GROUPOne of the greatest takeaways I gained from university was not a perceived passport to greater things but, the ability to approach technical challenges with common sense. This might seem obvious but in a highly technical landscape we often "can't see the forest for the trees" and miss the opportunity for a simple solution due to over-thinking the problem. As leaders of IT, we are faced with the challenge of selecting solutions to problems that match the needs of the businesses that we work in, or work with. Most often, we also need to have a keen eye on the costs of those solutions which means keeping the solutions as simple as possible.How do we follow the KISS methodology of `Keep it Simple Stupid' and select simple solutions to complex problems?For our journey to the cloud we should start off with getting things straight with our beliefs of what cloud is and what it is not. Due to the terminology used in cloud computing, we will find that there is confusion both internally in our organizations and externally in the market. But what is most important is to establish for ourselves and those around us, a common picture. My perception of cloud will differ from others, as well as having some common ground. First there are the five commonly accepted characteristics where we must be able to:· Provision resources ourselves without the need for human contact with the vendor, eg through a web-based application.· Access our services over networks, such as the internet and through various computing devices, eg desktops or mobile phones.Alex Konnaris
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