How to Ensure

Cloud Native
Success on Day 2
and Beyond
D2iQ
Introduction
In this ebook you will learn:
•• The challenges and complexities of
adopting cloud native technology
•• The components of building an intelligent
success strategy
•• How to apply D2iQ’s Solution Sphere
framework to ensure long term success
in production
Introduction
Intense competition, customer demands,
and market pressure drive the need for today’s
businesses to rapidly innovate.
In order to continuously launch leading-edge
applications and new technologies, organizations
are quickly moving towards implementing cloud
native and open source technologies as part of
their stack—so they can become more agile and
decrease time-to-market.
However, while these new technologies enable
companies to build and deploy at a rapid pace,
there are many unexpected issues that arise from
using new technologies that are still unproven
in the enterprise space. And without the expertise
readily available in-house and the surprisingly
high long-term costs associated with the adoption
of these technologies, companies have felt
significant impacts in operations.
2
Moreover, in many cases, once a cloud native
or open source technology is implemented,
organizations struggle with Day 2 operations—
the critical post-implementation activities needed
to ensure optimal outcomes and maximum ROI
from technology projects.
The reality is, if your revenue and productivity is
powered by cloud native applications, risk is not
an acceptable option.
To be successful with your cloud native transition,
you need a framework for an intelligent strategy
that goes way beyond Day 1. Because D2iQ has
developed a proven track record for enabling cloud
native transformations, we have taken away all
of the guesswork by providing you with a blueprint
for future-proofing your deployments for the
long term.
D2iQ 3

Challenges with the

Rapid Adoption of Cloud
Native Technology
D2iQ Challenges with the Rapid Adoption of Cloud Native Technology
Challenges with the As more and more companies move towards
Rapid Adoption of Cloud implementing cloud native and open source
Native Technology technology solutions to enable agility and speed,
the operational impacts to the business can be
significant.
Before we discuss how to ensure a successful
technology implementation, let’s take some
time to address the most common challenges
companies face.
Intense Competition and Market Pressure
Drive Rapid Innovation
Every business wants to remain competitive and
there is significant pressure to adopt new initiatives
to achieve greater business velocity. Initiatives
like “data analytics”, “data science”, “cloud”,
“IoT devices”, and more are being leveraged by
organizations to gain an advantage while disrupting
how business has traditionally been performed.
Rather than getting the right people, process,
and technology in place to ensure success, many
companies jump head-first into these initiatives
without understanding the potential impacts of
a cloud native transition.
Rushing to the finish line can cause productivity
disruptions, lost revenue, employee turnover,
security deficiencies, and more.
4
Lack of Maturity and Interoperability
of Many Open Source Technologies
Understanding the cloud landscape is a critical
component for kicking off any digital transformation
project, but the state of each technology
varies significantly. Because so many of these
technologies are open source, getting a true
understanding of maturity can be challenging.
Some solutions are in very early stages with low
commercial adoption and support, while other
solutions are later stage and much more mature.
Unfortunately, most of these technologies were not
built to ensure interoperability from the beginning
and the efforts of jamming together multiple
disparate solutions from the cloud native landscape
is complex and rife with challenges—making
science projects out of organizational initiatives.
Modern organizations need to ensure that their
solutions are enterprise-grade and ready to scale.
D2iQ Challenges with the Rapid Adoption of Cloud Native Technology 5

CNCF Cloud Landscape

Take a look at the following image from CNCF

showing the cloud native landscape. As you can
see, there are so many options to choose from...

Install Applicaton Manage Application

Monitoring
Packages

Container Platform Service Discovery

& Resource Manager Mesh & Networking
Log View & Search

Container Runtime

Storage
Debugging

Training

K8’s Installer
 D2iQ
“Implementation is just the beginning, what really
enables your business to be successful with any
digital transformation initiative is tackling ongoing
Day 2 operations.”
No Clear Best Practices or
Architectural Standards
Because many of these new technologies lack
maturity, as stated in the previous section,
the right information and proper documentation
is scattered and difficult to distill. How can you
truly trust if an application is safe to include
in your implementation if you have no idea whether
or not the documentation is correct and up-to-
date? And if you do implement that application,
how do you know it complies with your business’
standards?
Because many of these open source technologies
do not have well-defined best practices or
architectural standards, implementing these
solutions can be a huge business risk.
Challenges with the Rapid Adoption of Cloud Native Technology
Limited Choices for Leveraging External
Domain Expertise and Support
In order to ensure that your Day 2 operations go
smoothly, you need the right expertise to provide
guidance and support. Unfortunately, because
so many of these technologies are new, there
is a very limited pool of talent—both internally
and externally—you can pull from.
You need the right technical support and
services to operate and scale effectively, and
with limited options available, the complexities
of long term success can be a huge barrier.
6
The Complexity of Managing Ongoing
Operations and Overhead on Day 2
Implementation is just the beginning, what really
enables your business to be successful with any
digital transformation initiative is tackling ongoing
Day 2 operations. This means ensuring that all
of your technologies work well together, your team
knows how to leverage the technologies, and you
have an operational readiness plan for continued
development and ongoing improvement. So many
businesses focus their attention on what happens
before production and as a result, success is not
always achieved.
D2iQ 7

The 5 Critical
Elements Needed
for Your Cloud
Native Transformation
D2iQ
The 5 Critical Elements
Needed for Your Cloud
Native Transformation
While moving to the cloud is a business
imperative, there are many complexities and
obstacles standing in the way of success.
For your organization to truly embrace a cloud
native strategy, you need to think holistically
beyond implementation to what happens
on Day 2.
That is why we have developed a framework
at D2iQ that helps to outline everything you
need to accelerate your move to the cloud and
beyond. This section goes into more depth
around critical elements to keep top-of-mind
for long-term success.
The 5 Critical Elements Needed for Your Cloud Native Transformation
1
Enterprise-Grade Scalability
2Flexibility Across Any Infrastructure
One of the biggest issues with cloud native and
open source technologies is that very few are ready
for enterprise implementation. Your organization
has a lot of moving parts and scalability, security,
and compliance are all critical components to
how you conduct your business. So how do you
achieve rapid technology adoption and scale
without sacrificing important capabilities that your
business needs to be effective?
You can’t just rely on open source base-tech to
provide you with enterprise-grade functionality.
You need to partner with a trusted resource, like
D2iQ, that can provide you with a holistic approach
to implementing these new technologies in the
enterprise. With the right partnership in place
to help make decisions and provide guidance, you
can successfully move into Day 2 operations.
8
Despite the rapid move to the cloud, many
organizations still maintain a combination of
on-premises and cloud-based infrastructure
due to a variety of enterprise needs. So how
do you leverage new, cloud-based technologies
if you don’t want to (or can’t) completely move
to the cloud?
You need to ensure that you choose a solution
provider that has the expertise across any
infrastructure and can help make the technology
work for you and not the other way around.
D2iQ is the only solution provider that enables
our customers to drive software innovation on
every cloud, in the datacenter, and at the edge.
Having a value-added partner that understands
how to create that seamless foundation across
your infrastructure is critical for scale.
D2iQ
3
Data-Driven Architecture
Most companies today have massive data
needs. Whether you are ingesting data from
your customers, developing new data-driven
applications, or crunching the numbers to
better understand your business, you need
to have the ability to connect and scale
applications.
To ensure that the most sophisticated
applications can operate at significant scale
when dealing with massive data needs,
partnering with a company like D2iQ provides
you with enterprise-grade supportability
across the most common prevailing open
source data technologies, so you can achieve
success managing stateful data services at
massive scale.
The 5 Critical Elements Needed for Your Cloud Native Transformation
4
Cloud Native Ecosystem Partnerships
5Change Management and Training
As we mentioned numerous times in this ebook,
choosing and implementing the right cloud-
native technology is critical to the success of
your digital transformation initiative. And in order
to make those decisions you need to understand
how each piece of technology works together
and why you should choose one over the other for
your business.
By leveraging a team of experts in the cloud
native and open source landscape, like D2iQ,
you are empowered to make smarter selections
through best-practice guidance and support
across the full cloud-native landscape.
9
The success of your initiative depends on your
ability to ensure your key stakeholders and
technical team members are on-board with
your new technology selections. You need them
to not only understand why the changes were
made and how these changes can impact your
bottom line, but you also need to make sure
that your team is properly trained every step of
the way.
Partnering with a company that values success
and training as key elements of any technical
project is a great way to maintain excellence
after implementation and post Day 2. This
requires you to provide your team with technical
certifications, technology best practices, and
more. At D2iQ, training is in our DNA. We enable
your company to leverage our team of experts
to ensure that your team is fully trained on how
to use the new technology post implementation.
D2iQ 10

D2iQ’s Solution
Sphere Methodology
D2iQ D2iQ’s Solution Sphere Methodology 11

To ensure a successful end-to-end process for

moving towards a cloud native approach, you
need a framework that helps you “build smart”
from the beginning.

The framework should include everything required

to make the best and most holistic decisions
for your organization. You need to think about
your technology choices and how everything
fits together, implementation, Day 2 operations,
ongoing training, and professional services.

D2iQ has created our Solution Sphere methodology

to drive successful customer outcomes around
a critical piece of technology. Our Solution Spheres
have been created around key areas of expertise
like Mesos, Kubernetes, and Data Science.
Each Sphere is composed of the right technology
solutions, training, and services, so that you and
your team have a comprehensive game plan for
implementation, change management, and beyond.

Layer 1: Technology Solutions

Layer 2: Professional Services

Layer 3: Training Services

Layer 4: Support Services

D2iQ D2iQ’s Solution Sphere Methodology 12

Core Layers of D2iQ’s Solution Spheres

Within our Sphere methodology, we provide a framework and blueprint for

what you need for your cloud native transition journey. In this section we go
through each element of successful implementation and Day 2 operations.

Layer 1: Technology Solutions Layer 2: Professional Services

First, we help you define the core business or technical problem you are
looking to solve. From there, all of the specifics and best practices can
be built according to the technology solutions that fit your organization’s
unique needs. For instance, our Sphere supporting Kubernetes—Ksphere—
was developed to guide you through the complex landscape of moving to
Kubernetes by providing a full compliment of technology solutions, trusted
guidance, and full-stack support.
Technology alone can’t improve your operations. You need the technical
horsepower in-house so you can get the most out of your investment.
We know that finding talent can be challenging and that is why D2iQ
offers a full suite of professional services to supplement your internal
teams. Our trusted team of experts work alongside you to help design,
deploy, and manage your stack.

D2iQ takes the guesswork out of selecting the right technology solutions.
We simplify your choices with prevailing, opinionated technologies, and ensure
capabilities like security and compliance as part of the overall package.

Finding the right technology is more than just determining the core solution.
You need to think through the holistic technology landscape and how
everything fits together. At D2iQ we provide our customers insider expertise
around what to choose. Plus, we have a large partner ecosystem that we
can leverage to help build your ideal solution.
D2iQ D2iQ’s Solution Sphere Methodology 13

Layer 3: Training Services Layer 4: Support Services

No matter where you are in your cloud journey we offer a wide range
of remote and on-site training and educational courses around the
technologies in each of our Solution Spheres. Your cloud native
transformation doesn’t end at implementation. You need to make sure
your team is trained with the necessary skillsets needed to achieve a
successful Day 2 outcome.
As you manage the ongoing process of building, deploying, and
operating your applications, you need a trusted lifeline you can call
to resolve issues. D2iQ knows that technology powers today’s most
successful businesses and we have developed a variety of support
options to fix issues fast—so you can keep moving forward with all of
your initiatives.
D2iQ
D2IQ offers the following set of solutions:
Advise
Provide you and your organization trusted advice
as you define your roadmap, choose the right
technologies, and design your deployment plan.
D2iQ’s Solution Sphere Methodology
Activate
Whether you require onsite or remote assistance,
it is our job to provide you with consulting
sessions, educational courses, and solutions
design. Additionally, D2iQ provides a highly
tailored deployment based on a pre-engagement
checklist, business case, and workload goals.
14
Adopt
The most important aspect of implementation
is your teams’ successful adoption of your
chosen platform. To ensure initial adoption,
D2iQ provides technical account management
services, remote operator services, a resident
engineer, and healthchecks.
D2iQ D2iQ’s Solution Sphere Methodology 15

To see how all of these elements fit together

to form a holistic, intelligent solution, take a
look at our Kubernetes framework, Ksphere.

Open Source Platform Open Source Data Partner Technologies

•• Phoenix •• Kafka •• SysDig
•• KUDO •• Casandra •• Tigera
•• Spark •• Portworx
•• HDFS •• Elastic
•• Elastic •• Gitlab
•• Jupyter
•• TensorFlow

Enterprise-Grade Tech Support/Success

•• Alert Manager •• Telesupport
•• Prometheus •• Mixed Workload Testing
•• Traefik •• Preventative Care
•• Fluentbit
•• Calico
•• CoreDNS
•• Grafana
•• Telegraf
•• Elasticsearch
•• Kibana
Implement:
•• Phoenix Jumpstart
•• Accelerator KaaS
•• K8s Security
D2iQ 16

Conclusion

Making the move to cloud-native can be daunting,

but it is important that you embrace the entire journey
from implementation, to integration, and beyond.
Too many companies get too mired in implementation
challenges and fail to set themselves up for success
on Day 2. By leveraging a tested framework and
partnering with a strategic advisor, like D2iQ, you have
access to all of the tools and expertise you need to
ensure that your journey to cloud native becomes a
true competitive advantage.
D2iQ
225 Bush Street, Suite 700
San Francisco, CA 94104
+1 (415) 805 1222
www.d2iq.com