By Rich Bourdeau, VP Marketing
Cloud automation vendors make deploying a private cloud sound easy. If you take their basic out-of-the box capability, the good ones will probably take you anywhere from a few hours to a few days to get a simple self-service private cloud working. While that may make a nice proof of concept demo, will that actually meet the needs of how you manage your infrastructure or will you need to replace prior technology and best practice investments to make your cloud work?
Cloud Management is not a standalone entity. For your cloud to be successful, it needs to integrate and work with your existing management infrastructure and best practices. As you evaluate cloud management platforms, you need to assess how each tool enables you to work with your current and future management ecosystem. Your cloud management choice will not only impact prior investments, they also limit your future choices. In order to avoid some of the hidden private cloud costs, evaluate how cloud management options will fit with your existing IT infrastructure and management ecosystem.
