When we started to use terms such as "hybrid-cloud" and "multi-cloud" years ago, we believed that we were facing the final stage of segmenting the cloud paradigm. However, with the appearance of the term "distributed cloud," together with all its variants (industry cloud, regional cloud, community cloud, sovereign cloud, etc.), edge computing, and transformational technologies under the umbrella of cloud-native open an infinite range of possibilities.
Never before have the options and combinations been so varied, nor were there the challenges that organizations are facing today.
These past few years, I have seen IT service providers and end customers immersed, without knowing how much, in pharaonic designs and works of modernization, automation and standardization that have evolved and have gone from being technological projects and strategies to business projects and strategies.
Still, many of them are victims of a loss of focus on the fundamentals that should support the use of technology and the over-adoption of cloud-related technologies and concepts, suffering from what I call the scattered cloud syndrome.
Strategic vs. Tactic
On the one hand, the scattered cloud syndrome, in strategic terms, is an overvaluation, technological planning, and investment and innovation fundamentals misaligned with business needs.
On the other hand, the scattered cloud syndrome, in tactical terms, is an ecosystem’s saturation and the absence of standardized processes that regulate the use of technology.
Although this syndrome can be suffered at two different levels of an organization, both respond to the inability to obtain a technological framework aligned with the requirements of the business to be nurtured. Technological saturation, cloud dispersion and the focus on purely technical results distort and divert attention from those parameters that are essential to an organization.
Identifying the Scattered Cloud Syndrome
The scattered cloud syndrome can be identified in organizations that:
- Over-evaluate and over-explore the market for cloud products and services.
- Have saturated frameworks that seek to cover operational deficiencies.
- Plan and execute the technology strategy independently and disconnected from the business strategy.
- Neglect the shift of current and future buying behaviors.
This article originally appeared on the Gartner Blog Network.
