Cloud computing technologies are now used in every aspect of the online experience, from hosting websites to developing innovative mobile applications. With so many use cases, it’s important to select the best platform that is cost effective, efficient, and adaptable throughout an organization.
We’ve partnered up with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to offer our customers another option as they consider their cloud futures. To understand more 
about AWS, cloud computing, and the future ahead, we sat down with our own Sherif Abdelgawad. Sherif will also be on an upcoming webinar, Navigating The Future of Cloud to Fuel Innovation on July 20th. You can RSVP here.
Thanks for taking the time Sherif. Tell us why you think the cloud is such an important business priority for executives today?
Enterprises are being forced through a wave of changes in order to stay competitive with lean organizations. Cloud is the innovation vehicle for digital business transformations that are taking place. Cloud enables enterprises to focus on their core business differentiations while delivering real-time dynamic IT infrastructure that is scalable, secure, and managed.
Perficient has been helping numerous companies transition into the cloud. How do you think we add value to the process?
We focus on driving accelerated business value to our customers. We believe that cloud journey does not have to be “cloudy”. We built multiple tools and methodologies to provide clarity for the cloud vision and roadmap of the journey in measurable and tangible results.
We also add value through value engineering or modeling, which is the services, functions, or features you get from a product divided by the cost of getting such service; or simply: V=F/C. We don’t only focus on carving out the costs to enhance the value but also look at enhancing the function to deliver the best value to our customers. Here are some examples of what we do:
- MDI Framework (Measure, Diagnose, and Improve): This is a framework to enable execution of cloud-first strategy by focusing on identifying key KPIs that matter for the business and work backward into different value streams covering people, culture, process, and technology. The framework is iterative in nature balancing three main architecture fundamentals: Minimum Viable Product (MVP), technical debts, and future proof.
- Innovation Lab: We believe each cloud journey is unique and requires its own solution. The Innovation Lab is our center of excellence where we leverage existing practices and solutions to help organizations discover effective cloud migration strategies that make their adoption journey easier.
- Immersion Solution: One of the challenging problems in cloud migration is the migration of specific workloads or applications. Our award-wining Immersion Solution was developed in-house with modular, cross-platforms, and open architecture in mind. No matter how much our customer wants to migrate, our Immersion Solution can handle the workload involved.
You mentioned value modeling in your previous answer. Tell us how that influences the future of cloud computing.
Cloud computing is not a buzzword anymore. Adoption is happening across the different industries. Organizations are challenged to figure out the real business impact and measure the value of a specific technology solution running on the cloud with clear business KPI(s).
Since cloud computing is about the total cost of consumption, organizations must measure value differently. Value engineering and modeling has been used for a long time by product managers to build the right product with the right market price. As organizations move into the cloud, value modeling will help them visually analyze their value streams.
In value modeling, you’ve mentioned that innovative technologies now take precedence. Tell us how our partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) puts our emphasis on cloud innovation.
The promise of cloud computing is the ability of IT organizations to innovate on behalf of the business. AWS delivers a wide range of building blocks beyond traditional hosting of compute, network and storage, providing the right innovation platforms while allowing organizations to focus on real business differentiation. Solutions include a wide range of tools supporting application services, big data, mobile services, development & deployment, IoT, enterprise applications, DevOps, and hybrid cloud integration.
Why is the AWS ecosystem so key for enterprises looking to adopt both the hybrid cloud and digitally transform their businesses? What are some relevant business cases that you’ve discovered with AWS?
AWS provides a wide range of core building blocks for digital enterprises at low cost alongside thousands of ISVs and certifications for healthcare and payment systems. Enterprises are using AWS in different ways, from enhancing developer productivity to developing new applications to cloud migration, all at a low, flexible cost.
Some relevant industry examples of companies using AWS include Netflix and Airbnb. Whether it’s hosting movies or enabling people to stay over in a spare bedroom, AWS can provide the workload. Success is not a matter of if, but rather when.
Where do you see cloud headed in the next several years? 10 years? 20 years? How do you think cloud technologies intersect with other ongoing enterprise trends including the Internet of Things (IoT) and virtual/augmented reality?
Cloud computing is changing how enterprises consume IT. Analysts are predicting that public cloud would be 80%, 10% to SaaS providers like Salesforce, and 10% would be on-premises implementation. I think this will be accelerated in the next several years as more enterprises continue to adopt cloud-first strategies. All the digital experience and connected devices or IoT are by nature cloud-born.
To conclude, cloud computing is redefining IT as a utility, much like electricity did to power plants. I expect enterprises gradually stop building datacenters and connect to cloud providers in the future, focusing on their core business rather than the heavy lifting of maintain datacenters.
Learn More
Join Sherif on an upcoming webinar, Navigating The Future of Cloud to Fuel Innovation on July 20th. You can RSVP here.
Learn more about our Amazon Web Services practice here.
