In the first part of this series, we discussed the question of cloud agility and how that concept relates to enterprise agility as a whole. As we pointed out, the word “agility” is thrown around a lot with reference to the cloud, but with less frequently is its significance expanded upon.
“An agile cloud can facilitate real enterprise innovation.”
However, cloud agility is more than an empty buzz term, as industry expert Bernard Golden explained back in 2010. Instead, it is an important concept that refers to the potential of the cloud to facilitate real enterprise innovation. But that can only happen if companies that harness cloud solutions are making the most of them – although that’s not always the case
Overestimating agility
Recently, Oracle conducted a study on cloud agility. As the findings of the study illustrated, there is often an incongruity between where many businesses think they stand in terms of agility and where they actually are. The study – which comprised a survey pool of 2,263 big business employees across the globe – found that 64 percent of respondents stated that their companies were agile. Yet these other statistics from the study suggested that cloud agility numbers might not actually be that high:
- Of the companies surveyed, representatives from nearly half – 49 percent – stated that they “either cannot, or do not know if they can shift workloads between public, private and hybrid clouds, and migrate on-premises applications to the cloud.” The ability to shift seamlessly between these different clouds is one of the key features of Platform as a Service (PaaS). The fact that employee respondents did not know if this shifting was a possibility means PaaS-fueled agility is not being harnessed.
- Fifty-two percent of survey respondents stated that their businesses’ IT infrastructure was not suited to handle threats from the competition. The need for companies to retain the competitive edge is one of the key drivers behind advancements in the cloud. The fact that the majority of survey respondents were not confident in this ability to be competitive illustrates a lack of agility.
- When it comes to building, testing and deploying a new business mobile app within a six-month period, this was something only 50 percent of company respondents said their businesses would be able to do. And fewer than a third of company representatives said their businesses would be able to carry out that same process in just a month. In the realm of enterprise cloud deployments, being able to construct mobile apps represents one of the key means of meeting the competitive challenges of today. That so many businesses still find this to be a cumbersome process points to difficulties in attaining more agile cloud functionality.
Gaining cloud agility with PaaS to fuel overall agility
In the cloud-focused enterprise world of today, PaaS provides companies with a platform to attain agility. It is a tech investment that truly maximizes what companies can get out of the cloud.
“PaaS provides companies with a platform to attain agility.”
“Today, PaaS can enable businesses to build new applications quickly – in as little as two weeks – allowing them to launch new internal and customer-facing applications rapidly,” said Robert Shimp, group vice president of Oracle. “This capability allows organizations to respond almost immediately to market conditions and get their products and services to customers ahead of the competition.”
The problem, as the Oracle survey identified, is that many businesses aren’t making the necessary investment in PaaS, despite wanting to achieve agility in the cloud. A large part of this issue stems from companies not fully grasping what PaaS provides. As the survey revealed, only 37 percent of respondents in the United States have a clear grasp of PaaS.
To understand what PaaS is – and how it fuels agility – it’s helpful to look at a leading PaaS tool like Oracle Cloud Platform. Broadly, this resource is devoted to offering users a consolidating platform that accommodates existing apps and provides a space for new app development as well. Among Oracle Cloud Platform’s benefits are:
- Reduced complexity: The platform provided by Oracle limits the complexity that IT departments have to deal with, which in turn fuels more streamlined operations.
- Speed and efficiency: Oracle engineers its tools to provide speed and efficiency, meaning that companies struggling to roll out apps in one or even six months won’t have that problem with Oracle.
- Security: Thanks to its compliance with existing laws and security standards, Oracle PaaS ensures its users a high degree of protection in a threat-heavy atmosphere.
When companies partner with Oracle, they take a necessary step toward achieving the true agility the cloud offers.
