Understanding and Planning Your Projects
There are a number of considerations that must be taken into account in planning your IT Project. These details can affect cost, start times, product acquisition and completion of your project.
One Size Does Not Fit All
Every organization has its own unique technology footprint (e.g. servers and legacy applications), requirements to meet (e.g. regulatory compliance, timeline to deploy), and internal skill sets that could impact the size and type of technology project.
Cloud is Complex
There are many variables to consider and understanding your options can often be complex. Some of the features that make the cloud attractive – including its ability to scale up quickly – can make it harder to estimate costs.
Consider Your Hosting Options
Whether you host in the cloud through a mainstream provider or host through colocation on dedicated hardware, there are advantages for both scenarios… and costs. Hosting costs are often based on either data footprint on a server or in data transfer back and forth from the server.
Consider Your Costs
It is essential to evaluate both direct (hardware, software, facilities) and indirect costs (loss of productivity, costs from downtime) when evaluating a new IT project.
Determine How Much Downtime Your Team Can Tolerate
Is there a maintenance window available? Will systems have to run concurrently?
Factor in Security – Define Your Criteria for Data Management and Security:
Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability
Define Successful Outcomes
Before evaluating technology and tools, decision makers should define the organization’s needs – both current state and future state and match the technology to those goals.
