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Going cloud native? Here’s why working with a partner to outsource DevOps services makes more sense than sticking with the same old IT consulting firms.

The cloud is full of promise – with prospects of superior scalability, accelerated innovation and greater value. But when it comes to resources, what does it take to make the most of cloud transformation?

Let’s consider the challenges facing enterprise organizations using conventional IT models:

  • At a strategic level, IT organizations are under pressure to embrace modern cloud native development practices and drive business transformation. 
  • Tactically, IT operations teams are tasked to support and maintain the transformation, improve reliability, monitor and deploy in a brand new paradigm. Defining, contracting for and integrating partners or internal teams to build and manage evolving cloud estates are never-ending challenges.

Becoming a cloud native enterprise is complex and requires big, disruptive change to people, process, and technology. Ultimately, the skills and processes your IT organization has relied upon before will not scale in the cloud. 

However, upskilling takes time and there is no guarantee that you are going to be able to attract the talent you need right away.

While it makes sense to seek the help of a trusted partner to help guide this transformation, traditional SIs, who rely on conventional IT delivery models, may hinder – and not help – modernization. 

In fact, sticking to tradition could add risk and complexity and create roadblocks to realizing the benefits of going cloud native. 

Why do traditional IT and outsourcing models fall short when adopting and operating in the cloud?

Many organizations are moving to cloud native architectures and agile delivery models to achieve greater value. However, that puts the traditional ways of delivering IT under intense pressure. They are designed to support static services and focus on long-term planning, hierarchical team structures, siloed functions (Ops vs Dev), tightly coupled architectures, ad-hoc monitoring and support – and they just can’t keep pace with cloud transformation.

Three key obstacles are often encountered by organizations considering adoption of a cloud native model:

  • Skills – Without the necessary cloud skills or DevOps experience on your  team, you can’t be effective in the cloud.
  • Process – Strict waterfall processes encourage silos and block cross-functional collaboration.
  • Technology – Without effective tools and tech in place, it’s difficult to enable collaboration and automation.

There are other considerations, too. 

In a traditional IT model… In a cloud native model…
Culture Predictive Collaborative
Service Delivery  Centralized Self-service
Delivery Process Waterfall Agile
Delivery Velocity Irregular or periodic releases Continuous delivery
Architecture Tightly coupled Micro-services
Support Manual Self-healing and predictive
Platform Servers Containers
Teams Hierarchical, siloed Cross-functional DevOps and SRE teams

 

The traditional outsourcing model is also problematic. It doesn’t scale with your business, which creates risk. Integration of apps and infrastructure are still your problem. And, as mentioned earlier, partner management is an ongoing concern. 

So, if conventional IT and traditional outsourcing models can’t deliver cloud native digital transformation, what will?


Gartner’s Mandatory Skills to Sustain Application Delivery in 20211 states: “In the coming year, application leaders should focus on optimizing and refining application delivery to make it repeatable, effective and efficient,” identifying DevOps as one of the focus areas to implement continuous learning.


What are the benefits of working with a DevOps partner?

A DevOps approach is all about collaboration, culture and communication. For your organization to achieve all that the cloud promises, it is vital to bridge the gaps between development and operations, applications and infrastructure, IT and the business. 

The most important aspect of a DevOps partner is its people – they need to be cloud native experts, a cross-functional team that helps drive transformation – not just outsourced IT resources that put out fires. These embedded experts:

  • Care about collaboration and knowledge sharing, DevOps adoption and delivering quality.
  • Are intimately involved in scrums, planning and roadmap setting.
  • Understand and implement true DevOps and don’t treat development and operations as silos.
  • Are focused on continuous improvement and evolution, not just freestanding services.

Working with a DevOps partner offers several advantages as they help you navigate the challenges of adopting cloud native technologies and engineering practices:

  • Unified Engineering and Ops, delivered as a 24×7 service.
  • Simple and predictable monthly pricing model.
  • On-demand, flexible team that can quickly scale and evolve based on your requirements.
  • KPI-driven with a radical focus on trend improvement and platform evolution.
  • Cloud-native skill sets with expertise in Agile, DevOps, containers and microservices.
  • Best practices, agile practices and pre-built code.

Want to learn more about how a DevOps Partner can help your enterprise accelerate cloud initiatives with accountable leadership and measured success? Cloudreach’s DevOps as a Service distills over a decade of experience in DevOps and cloud native, and packages it in an easy-to-consume subscription-based model.