The Opportunity
In the IT world, “the cloud” refers to a network of remote servers that store, manage, and process data and applications over the internet as opposed to local computers or physical data centers. As part of HBS IT’s Strategic Plan, a Cloud Program has been established to help enhance agility, experimentation, and rapid evolution of cloud usage at HBS. Moving more intentionally to the cloud enables quick testing and iteration without significant capital investment, physical infrastructure, or long-term commitments. The cloud allows for seamless scaling based on demand, facilitates more efficient staff management of resources, and provides detailed cost visibility. Overall, leveraging the cloud is essential for HBS’s technological evolution.
The Solution
The Cloud Program will establish clear cloud principles, architectural standards, and governance processes as well as invest in the skills of our staff to support a way of working within the cloud. This initiative will evolve our nimble, scalable, and secure multi-cloud environment to better meet the changing needs of the HBS community with best-in-class cloud service providers.
Cloud Governance: The cloud committee will define oversight for cloud strategies, policies, capabilities, and service offerings across HBS. It will align cloud technologies and offerings with the broader HBS IT strategy, supporting operational efficiency, cross-team collaboration, and compliance.
FinOps Tool Implementation: A new Cloud Financial Operations tool will be implemented to support financial tracking, analytics, projections, and recommendations to help us continually improve the economics of running in the cloud.
Cloud Migration Roadmap and Playbook: We are evaluating our current applications and services to determine which ones can be moved to the cloud. This transition will help us improve efficiency, security, and scalability. As part of this effort, we will also establish a clear plan for managing our cloud environment in the future to ensure smooth operations.
Observability and Cloud Monitoring: We are improving the way we track and manage our technology systems, both in our hybrid on-premises data centers and in the cloud. This will give us better visibility into system performance, help us quickly identify and resolve issues, and ensure a stable and reliable technology environment for everyone.
The Impact
The Cloud Program is tackling analysis, planning, and design through migration of most of our applications and servers to one or more of our cloud service providers. After the analysis is complete, a roadmap for timing migrations will be developed to ensure thoughtful planning, resourcing, and budgeting. We anticipate several benefits, including:
An IT environment that is dynamic, nimble, and facilitates experimentation and rapid evolution of IT products and services
Simplified exploration and linking of disparate data and services
The ability to scale resources dynamically as needed—giving us “just in time” infrastructure
Detailed visibility into and breakdown of costs that we can explicitly tie to departments, programs, projects, and operational activities in ways simply not possible in our on-premises environment
A simplified more direct path to improved disaster recovery and service continuity