IT Bill of Rights

Public Cloud Deployment

outsourced operations and complexity
high flexibility
loss of data sovereignty and security
high cost

Enterprise IT Deployment

high build and operational complexity
limited flexibility
effective data sovereignty and security
lower cost

Enterprises are unable to escape the compromises imposed by these two options because the technology has not existed to allow it. Every IT deployment, indeed, every public cloud is built up from disparate component parts (compute, storage, networking, acceleration, and humans) and brought together by brute force.

No technology fabric has previously existed that reaches beyond the hypervisor to virtualize and present every resource and service like the store front of a public cloud.

This is the locus of the CIO's dilemma.

The CIO's Dilemma

Bill of Rights

Read the Bill Here

Organizations often attempt to resolve this dilemma by deploying both strategies simultaneously. Considered in light of the attendant integration and organizational overhead, this approach cannot be papered over as a "hybrid." It is, in fact, no choice at all.

Public cloud has impressive technical and operational properties, and it also imposes some harsh realities. If the latter can be tolerated, then the inherent flexibility of the approach offsets some of the risk of making the deployment work.

On the other hand, if the burden of manifesting a cloud-native application, the high cost of public cloud, the compliance and security issues, and a myriad of other factors stand in the way of a public-cloud deployment, then the organization must install the system on premises and undertake its continued care and feeding.

In every large organization, using both types of deployment is the only way to meet varied business requirements. Thus, the "CIO's dilemma" is really no choice at all.