Really good article Andrew! A bit provocative for a techy, but with a clear and important message that would be lost in technical discussions otherwise. An internal IT infrastructure team is often the wrong group to go for advice on cloud automation topics. CFO is definitely the voice of reason in the room for the costs discussions.
Costs, however, is not even the most important function to optimize for a business. Especially for a traditional enterprise that is trying to compete with digital natives. Speed is. Cost is more of a constraint, not the goal. This is how much we have in the budget and let’s make the best of it.
This is where the true and absolutely irreplaceable value of cloud automation comes in. Of course, this is true if the IT is not considered to be just the cost center, but is a critical element of the entire business value chain.
Good luck trying to do a production release every few hours a day and not getting your hair grey as you cross the go-live line. Good luck trying to do your zero downtime security patches. Good luck trying to do canary releases and be ready to revert in real time. The list goes on. All these things are must-haves for delivery team that is trying to move at the speed of digital natives.
Running in the cloud and taking advantage of the cloud are two very different things. I have seen this many times — we have the cloud but we still have our infrastructure team standing between us and the cloud.
Don’t just bring your CFO into this discussions, bring along your Head of Marketing and VP of Sales or product development. They will weigh in with additional arguments for speed.
