Integrating Cloud-Native Architecture – Deloitte On Cloud Blog | Deloitte US has been saved
A blog by Amod Bavare, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Tejas Desai, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Mac McEldon, senior manager, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Most organizations agree on the value that cloud brings; however, a misconception remains that simply lifting and shifting workloads to the cloud will provide a quick return on investments. To fully realize the value of cloud, companies need to consider an innovation-focused strategy enabled by a cloud-native approach.
The ongoing pandemic has showcased the need for businesses to truly innovate through the application of technology to become more agile and adaptive to changing market conditions. Companies now realize how important it is to consider the critical design goal of enabling innovation in their cloud strategy, define what the foundation for innovation should look like, and have increased awareness of the potential pitfalls of this journey. Companies should think of ways to implement cloud-native architecture wherever possible across all tiers of the IT landscape for greenfield development or legacy workload migration. Cloud-native architecture, focused on establishing core innovation capability across three critical pillars of platform foundations, enterprise data lakes, and modern compute services, can unlock tangible cloud benefits and offers optimal efficiency in the design, development, and operational phases of the application life cycle.
What is innovation core?
“Innovation core” is a technology perspective that has its roots in traditional modes of enterprise IT realigned to the cloud-native paradigm through a set of unified cloud-native architecture principles. It introduces an architectural paradigm that organizations can adopt to cover key facets of cloud-native adoption and better understand potential approaches to attaining organizational goals (figure 1).
Simply stated, the value proposition here is that getting the core services (referenced in figure 1) deployed successfully and in a shared model will unlock the desired benefits for the majority of innovation opportunities.
Establishing innovation core capability
Establishing “innovation core” capability means getting the core services deployed successfully and in a shared model to unlock the desired benefits for most innovation opportunities.
Potential constraints and steps to overcome
Applying innovation core thinking in cloud strategy can be challenging. Here are a few of the recurring pitfalls observed among organizations throughout their cloud adoption journey, along with prescriptive recommendations for how to overcome them.
Last word
By considering the latest in leading cloud-native approaches and their impact across the cloud services landscape, organizations can achieve their technology innovation targets. Establishing core innovation capability, as opposed to simply lifting and shifting workloads to cloud, can provide significant benefits and help organizations unlock the true benefits of cloud. To learn more about this topic, please read our full report, “Awakening architecture with cloud innovation core” and “A new framing for cloud innovation.”
As the chief cloud strategy officer for Deloitte Consulting LLP, David is responsible for building innovative technologies that help clients operate more efficiently while delivering strategies that enable them to disrupt their markets. David is widely respected as a visionary in cloud computing—he was recently named the number one cloud influencer in a report by Apollo Research. For more than 20 years, he has inspired corporations and start-ups to innovate and use resources more productively. As the author of more than 13 books and 5,000 articles, David’s thought leadership has appeared in InfoWorld, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, NPR, Gigaom, and Lynda.com. Prior to joining Deloitte, David served as senior vice president at Cloud Technology Partners, where he grew the practice into a major force in the cloud computing market. Previously, he led Blue Mountain Labs, helping organizations find value in cloud and other emerging technologies. He is a graduate of George Mason University.
Amod is a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP and leads go-to-market for cloud transformations across the Application Modernization & Innovation operating portfolio. With more than 25 years of IT industry experience, Amod specializes in renovating architecture and migrating complex enterprise applications to the cloud, essentially helping to create value by modernizing clients’ legacy systems. His ability to lead organizations through digital transformation journeys is the reason he emerged as a leader in application modernization.