What is our primary use case?
When you push your networking, storage, and other infrastructure from on-premise to the cloud, you can let go of your on-premise real estate and shift the burden back onto the cloud vendor. Google absorbs the cost of power, cooling, management, etc.
You no longer need to spend on CapEx. Instead, you are spending on consumption, so your CapEx moves into OPEX and then on the utility. That's the generic use case for why somebody would move their workload to the cloud.
How has it helped my organization?
Migrating to the cloud offers multiple benefits for consumers. One is financial. Customers can let go of their data centers and put the overhead and the hassle of management onto the cloud provider.
What is most valuable?
It's easy to deploy next-generation applications on Google Cloud. Customers can also use various cloud tools to optimize their operations and generate more insights to do business much smarter.
What needs improvement?
Cloud vendors can't afford to have data centers all across the world because of the economics of scale and the size of markets. That is one reason that some customers don't get onto the cloud.
Another issue is the applicability of local language data capturing mechanisms, which are more advanced on cloud service providers, but still there is room to grow. Also, their hybrid version isn't available in all markets worldwide, so I'm hoping that it will be released globally soon.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been selling Google Cloud solutions for about a year now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability has never been a question with any of the three major cloud vendors.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Cloud vendors are more scalable than any on-prem solution. There will always be an increasing demand for cloud solutions. It naturally goes up, and a lot of the other products you use will begin producing cloud versions that can only run on public clouds.
How are customer service and support?
All three cloud vendors have excellent support. I would rate them nine or 10 out of 10.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
So we have a reselling on prem solutions and cloud solutions.
How was the initial setup?
I rate Google Cloud eight out of 10 for ease of deployment. The complexity of deployment can vary depending on the use case and business requirements, but if it's an enterprise workload, we are looking at anywhere from four to six months.
One person could be enough to deploy and manage a cloud solution depending on how critical the workload is. It's also contingent on how much responsibility the customer or the cloud vendor takes. For example, if the cloud vendor takes maximum responsibility in a case like a software service, then the customer only has to configure, manage and run the software.
What about the implementation team?
We are the ones who migrate the workloads, so we're doing the implementation, but there is always. If it's a massive workload, we might bring in third-party integrators who specialize in a particular application workload.
What was our ROI?
You get an ROI from moving workloads from on-prem to cloud, but the real return comes when your customers start taking advantage of the cloud solution's full features. The return doesn't justify the cost unless you modernize the applications.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Cost can start from less than a dollar and go up. Monthly and yearly base billing is there, but ultimately it depends on customer usage, There could be additional costs. It depends on the requirements. If a customer has some needs that aren't available on the public cloud, they'll have to procure those licenses separately.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
The decision to use Google Cloud had nothing to do with its technical capabilities. We were looking at which cloud vendor had the least reach in our market, so we chose that vendor. It's hard to speak generally about the advantages and disadvantages of the different cloud platforms divorced from context.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Google Cloud 10 out of 10. People have limited knowledge of cloud solutions. My advice is that for those considering migration to the cloud is to evaluate the on-prem and cloud alternatives as much as possible because you can make wrong decisions if your perspective is limited.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner