IBM Internal Use Only
IBM PoV: #2 Cloud Architecture Design
A comprehensive technical strategy, architecture & implementation plan covering target workload service destinations, transformation & migration options, including service
management blueprint, resiliency, and security needs
Industry Setting and Problem
Clients must continually fight to reduce or optimize their costs for technology services to remain competitive
in their respective marketplaces. IT service delivery needs to be able to evolve and take advantage of
modern trends in a timely fashion to stay ahead of or on par with the competition.
Over 80% of customers struggle and need help to address the following:
• Find opportunities to optimize the current costs for services provided regardless of platform or
vendor selection
• Ability to adopt and leverage new technologies and service options in a timely fashion
• Flexibility to move between services and service providers as needed for resiliency or cost
optimization
Solutions Insights | Audience Roles and Objectives
Target audience includes: CIO, CTO, CFO, VP / Director of IT & Enterprise Architecture; Director of
Applications; Director IT Operations.
The client audience needs solutions to help with:
• Technical strategy to select right platform with relevant services, and providers Targeting the
right platforms, services, and providers for workloads
• Connecting those platforms and service providers together in an efficient and productive manner
• Providing the right security and resilience across these diverse solutions
• Planning and delivering service monitoring, management, and support across a much more
complex and heterogeneous portfolio of platforms and services than previously accustomed to
Shortcomings of Current Approaches
Contradictions and gaps abound in the current approaches and solutions which lack a unifying view
preventing 80% of workloads moving to cloud.
 Too much focus on moving workloads as-is into the cloud where cheaper infrastructure provides only so
much with regards to cost savings and does not address the other objectives
 Failure to roadmap for modernization or replacement of current workload targets
 Being sold on cloud being a self service experience and expecting to solve for all the complexities
internally without a proper roadmap and an experienced partner to help guide around the common
pitfalls and towards successful implementations
 Attempting to leverage existing ITSM tools and processes into different platforms and environments
without proper evaluation and reformulation for those tools and processes to work with the new
technologies and services
The New Approach
Cloud Architecture Design will provide a comprehensive technical strategy, architecture, and implementation
roadmap to provide the right platform, cloud, or service for the workload needs; allowing clients to integrate and
effectively manage services across providers, while providing flexibility and choice. Starting with an extensible
Multicloud reference architecture combined with recommended operating models and toolsets that can
evolve over time and thereby allowing for new services and providers in the future.
The technology models adopted will support a variety of options upfront, including:
• Traditional and cloud (private, public, hybrid, and multi) infrastructure
• Multi-platform (Intel, z, Power, and i) and multi-service (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS)
• Multi-vendor across those services and platforms (IBM, AWS, Microsoft, Google, RedHat)
The offering will leverage Cloud Innovate to accelerate the hybrid and multicloud enterprise transformation
journey. Once a targeted goal state architecture is agreed upon with the client, we will work to understand the
current state environments and provide a strategy and roadmap for building towards the desired multicloud
architecture and recommended operations model.
Benefits and Proof Points
Clients working with us will have a working strategy, roadmap, and design that can be implemented to support a
multicloud environment without going through multiple attempts of trial and error to figure out all the individual
pieces and complexities for themselves. Armed with an achievable plan and working design along with proof of
concept, clients can continue to work with IBM Services to make a successful transition to multicloud services and
reaping the benefits, such as:
• Over 30% increase in leveraging cloud native services and applications
• Over 25% savings on services delivered
• Agility to leverage new technologies and services
• Greater flexibility and choice between services and service providers
Advisory pillar Services are already being sought and positioning itself through opportunities like FCA
Critical Success Factors
Successful Multi Cloud Technology Architecture and Design require some key factors:
 Define an open technology framework aligned to business needs, key cloud use cases, hybrid and
multicloud goals
 Assess current IT estate and future needs to create an open, multi cloud architecture – separating
technology choice from run time choice; integrating resiliency, security and compliance from the ground
up – delivered with a design and implementation roadmap
 Develop a common IT management blueprint that supports prioritised cloud use cases, hybrid
environments, and allows use of managed services to address skill gaps
 Establish and promote a culture of learning and cross training to start closing gaps on new
technologies and create appropriate training plans that our client resources will require. 1
1