Several companies and organizations whether small, medium or large scale have been rapidly moving into the private cloud. It used to be just the ROI that is at stake, but now with cloud computing they are investing on the preparation to better train them for its implementation. This is the best time to look into the technical issues that the enterprise private cloud has been dealing with in its implementation process.
Image and Brand Management: Private cloud computing requires an effective and efficient virtual images administration. The first question that needs attention is the centralized storage system where issues of governance, version control, change history, access and many other concerns are directly affected. Not to mention that this storage data should be able to put together several components that should drive the pre-requisites into the private cloud. It also needs to address the issues on the advanced image management that will come from binary images as configured by the end-users of that image.
Customer and Technical Service Management: Cloud initiatives usually start small within the enterprise, and tackling problems while expanding to other areas are done as a mid to long-term goal. Challenges occur once the organization decides to expand from the limited features to the advanced private cloud services. This move requires a more detailed service directory that will identify key service capabilities and limitations of the current platform. One question to ask is its ability to handle image management solutions and the basic governance capabilities, plus keeping the end-users in mind by giving them a meaningful process to organize their data and surface services. There has to be a feature that allows discovery of users based on their key roles and responsibilities.
Customer User-service Access: A web front service that users can access easily with a self-service facility and enough access control is just part of the basic feature that the private cloud should offer. It also needs to address customer service and technical service to provide a venue for ticket request, ticket status update and ticket response handling in providing ticket request solutions. The infrastructure should identify which ticket can be handled through automation and which ones need a thorough attention by the administrator.
Flexibility: Flexibility is probably one of the best features of cloud computing, which means real-time service access for end users. This is to be managed effectively if the enterprise wants an efficient customer service. But, the challenge is how to set the rules in each application to keep all features running smoothly; and in case a problem arises with one application it should be scaled not to affect the other services being provided.
These are just some of the recurring challenges that face the cloud; it is timely for the providers and developers to continue discovering the best computer and business IT solutions while consumers and users are forging a new era in technology development.