On-demand Self-service

 

    On-demand self-service means that a consumer can request and receive access to a service offering, without an administrator or some sort of support staff having to fulfill the request manually. The request processes and fulfillment processes are all automated. This offers advantages for both the provider and the consumer of the service.

    Implementing user self-service allows customers to quickly procure and access the services they want. This is a very attractive feature of the cloud. It makes getting the resources you need very quick and easy. In traditional environments, requests often took days or weeks to be fulfilled, causing delays in projects and initiatives. You don’t have to worry about that in cloud environments.

    User self-service also reduces the administrative burden on the provider. Administrators are freed from the day-to-day activities around creating users and managing user requests. This allows an organization’s IT staff to focus on other, hopefully, more strategic, activities.

Self-service implementations can be difficult to build, but for cloud providers, they are definitely worth the time and money. User self-service is generally implemented via a user portal. There are several out-of-the-box user portals that can be used to provide the required functionality, but in some instances, a custom portal will be needed. On the front end, users will be presented with a template interface that allows them to enter the appropriate information. On the back end, the portal will interface with management application programming interfaces (APIs) published by the applications and services. It can present quite a challenge if the backend systems do not have APIs or other methods that allow for easy automation.

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