In my organisation and with my customers, we often talk about the Mission Critical Cloud. But what is that actually? If you look at the definition, it is a Cloud that is mission critical. Now you may wonder if there is a mission for a Cloud, but looking at the examples I come across on a daily basis, you can definitely say that the Cloud is deployed as critical to mission. For example, think about delivering the right medicine for a patient. Whether it's transport where temperature needs to be measured in real time and without data loss, or whether it's precisely determining which medicine belongs to which patient. In both cases, Cloud plays an important role. But beyond this clear example for the degree of (life) importance, I increasingly see Cloud developing as a lifeline for businesses. And the availability of services from that Cloud is critical. Just think about the scenario that your organisation's IT stops working: what are the consequences then?
With that critical interest of you as our customer always in mind, we developed our own Cloud platform. And we make no concessions whatsoever on quality: whether it is about the products we deploy in our Cloud platform, which suppliers we use to partner with, or which colleagues we allow into our company; in our daily work, we ensure that quality remains our top priority. And in our daily work, that means thinking carefully about the processes we apply. This sometimes seems threatening to customers: is this still customer-friendly? Sometimes it is also interpreted as inflexible. On the contrary, the opposite is true: being predictable by setting up a process properly creates the basis for quality: as I sometimes point out internally: no ‘specials’ please! Despite being able to help a very specific customer with a very specific configuration, this immediately creates a challenge in management and therefore good quality. But not supporting that special is then precisely inflexible, isn't it? And therein often lies the crux: by asking about the importance of the wish, we can always offer a supported alternative: daring to ask the question behind the question is precisely what enables us as an organisation to make a difference and still achieve the goal.
But back to that Mission Critical Cloud for a moment: chances are that you define your Cloud infrastructure as mission critical. But have you ever thought about how to ensure that this Cloud meets your definition? Is the fact that a major US player delivers said Cloud good enough? Or do you have a partner who ensures all requirements are met? Perhaps it is a good thing to think about this. Very often things go well, but the moment something goes wrong, whether in the Cloud or on the user side, it really shows how robust a Cloud solution is. Be aware of this!
