Introduction
While there is rapid momentum for every enterprise in the world in consuming more Cloud Assets and Services, there is still lack of maturity in adopting an “Automation-First” approach to establish Self-Service models for Cloud consumptions due to fear of uncontrolled costs, security & governance risks and lack of standardized Service Catalogs of pre-approved Assets & Service Requests from Central IT groups. Lack of delegation and self-service has a direct impact on speed of innovation and productivity with higher operations costs.
Working closely with AWS Partnership we have now created a flexible platform for driving faster adoption of Self-Service Cloud Portals. The primary needs for such a Self-Service Cloud Portal are the following.
- Adherence to Enterprise IT Standards
- Common architecture
- Governance and Cost Management
- Deployment and license management
- Identity and access management
- Common Integration Architecture with existing platforms on ITSM and Cloud
- Support for ServiceNow, Jira, Freshservice and Standard Cloud platforms like AWS
- Ability to add specific custom functionality in the context of Enterprise Business needs
- The flexibility to add business specific functionality is key to unlocking the power of self-service models outside the standard interfaces already provided by ITSM and Cloud platforms
A common way of identifying the need for a Self-Service Cloud portal is based on following needs.
- Does your enterprise already have any Self-Service Portals?
- Do you have a large user base internally or with external users requiring access to Cloud resources?
- Does your internal IT have the bandwidth and expertise to manage current workloads without impacting end user response time expectations?
- Does your enterprise have a proper security governance model for Cloud management?
- Are there significant productivity gains by empowering end users with Self-Service models?
Working with AWS partnership and an our existing customer, we see a growing need for Self-Service Cloud Portals predominantly centred around two models.
- Enterprises with existing ITSM investments and need to leverage that for extending to Cloud Management
- Enterprises extending needs outside enterprise users with custom Cloud Portals
The roadmap to Self-Service Cloud portals is specific to every enterprise needs and needs to leverage the existing adoption and maturity of Cloud and ITSM platforms as explained below. With Relevance Lab RLCatalyst products we help enterprises achieve the maturity in a cost effective and expedited manner.
Examples of Self-Service Cloud Portals
- Scientific Research community is interested in a Research Gateway Solution
- University IT looks for a University in a Box Self-Service Cloud
- Enterprises using ServiceNow want to extend the internal Self-Service Portals
- Enterprises are also developing Hybrid Cloud Orchestration Portals
- Enterprises looking at building AIOps Portal needs monitoring, automation and service management
- Enabling Virtual Training Labs with User and Workspace onboarding
- Building an integrated Command Centre requires an Intelligent Monitoring portal
- Enterprise Intelligent Automation Portal with ServiceNow Connector
Explained below is a sample AWS Self-Service Cloud for driving Scientific Research.
Getting started
To make is easier for enterprises for experiencing the power of Self-Service Cloud Portals we are offering two options based on enterprise needs.
- Hosted SAAS offering of using our Multi-tenant Cloud Portal with ability to connect to your existing Cloud Accounts and Service Catalogs
- Self-Hosted RLCatalyst Cloud Portal product with option to engage us for professional services on customizations, training, initial setup & onboarding needs
Pricing for the SAAS offering is based on user based monthly subscription while for self-hosting model an enterprise support model pricing is available for the open source solution that allows enterprises the flexibility to use this solution without proprietary lock-ins.
The typical steps to get started are very simple covering the following.
- Setup an organization and business units or projects aligned with your Cloud Accounts for easy billing and access control tracking
- Setup users and roles
- Setup Budgets and controls
- Setup standard catalog of items for users to order
- With the above enterprises are up to speed to use Self-Service Cloud Portals in less than 1-Day with inbuilt controls for tracking and compliance
Summary
Cloud Portals for Self-Service is a growing need in 2023 and we see the momentum continuing for next year as well. Different market segments have different needs for Self-Service Cloud portals as explained in this Blog.
- Scientific Research community is interested in a Research Gateway Solution
- University IT looks for a University in a Box Self-Service Cloud
- Enterprises using ServiceNow want to extend the internal Self-Service Portals
- Enterprises are also developing Hybrid Cloud Orchestration Portals
- Enterprises looking at building AIOps Portal needs monitoring, automation and service management
- Enabling Virtual Training Labs with User and Workspace onboarding
- Building an integrated Command Centre requires an Intelligent Monitoring portal
- Enterprise Intelligent Automation Portal with ServiceNow Connector
We provide pre-build solutions for Self-Service Cloud Portals and a base platform that can be easily extended to add new functionality for customization and integration. A number of large enterprises and universities are leveraging our Self-Service Cloud portal solutions using both existing ITSM tools (Servicenow, Jira, Freshservice) and RLCatalyst products.