Benefits of Cloud

Evergreen IT

The meaning of the term EverGreen IT depends on the context. It usually refers to 'a technology ecosystem that is continuously changing and evolving, never becoming out-of-date or obsolete'. 

An example of this is the latest Windows servicing model, in which the operating system is updated frequently, with many smaller releases, rather than a single more significant version every few years.

One of the most significant challenges our organisations face when providing services is how to effectively and efficiently maintain systems and software to ensure they’re up-to-date, secure and leverage the latest features.

Benefits

Adopting cloud services can have a profound impact on how your organisation views its technology and services.

To realise the benefits of Evergreen IT you should view your services as a set of components that deliver particular functionality, capabilities and data to your customers, rather than as specific systems or technologies. To derive the most significant benefit from this approach, it is also essential to follow a standards-based approach to development and to minimise excessive customisation and reliance on specific product features.

An example might be: 'Our Service allows users to search for data, returning filtered and sorted results in a range of formats'. This is in contrast to 'Our .Net Application runs on Microsoft Windows, returns data from Microsoft SQL Server using custom stored procedures'.

The underlying components of the service can change (servers, databases, etc.), while the interfaces, data and functionality remain the same.

Cloud adoption supports Evergreen IT by:

• reducing the infrastructure burden: migrating to cloud services and away from server-based, on-premises workloads can mitigate your infrastructure burden. The requirement to manage and maintain the underlying infrastructure for services passes to the Cloud Service Provider. The scale of the benefit depends on the cloud service model you choose and how aggressively you migrate workloads
• providing an Evergreen platform: Software-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service and Serverless offerings provide managed services that your organisation can use to build solutions without assuming ownership of the lifecycle of the underlying platform or its components
• eradicating Technical Debt: cloud services prevent your organisation from accruing substantial technical debt in the form of legacy services and operating systems. CSPs operate a moving window of supported software, encouraging – and eventually requiring – customers to move to the latest technologies