I just wrote an article for the vCloud blog which is titled “Top 3 Skills Your IT Team Needs to Prepare for the Cloud“. Although it is far less technical then I normally post here, it might still be worth a read for those who are considering a private or hybrid cloud, and even consuming a public cloud. Below is a short out take from the post, but for the full post you will need to head over to the vCloud Blog.
When I am talking about skills, I am not only talking about your team’s technical competency. For a successful adoption of cloud, it is of a great importance that the silos within the IT organization are broken down, or at a bare minimum bridged. Now more than ever, inter- and intra-team communication is of utmost importance. Larger organizations have realized this over the years while doing large virtualization projects, leading many to introduce a so-called “Center of Excellence.” This Center of Excellence was typically a virtual team formed out of the various teams (network, storage, security, server, application, business owners), and would ensure everyone’s requirements were met during the course of the project. With cloud, a similar approach is needed.