Posted on 01/06/2011 10:48:20 AM PST by SeekAndFind
If you’re an IT manager or senior IT executive in the evaluation phase for turning over some of your infrastructure to the cloud, you’re not alone. Cloud adoption can vary by industry and organization, but cloud computing is rapidly making inroads into most organizations. According to a recent survey of 600 senior IT and business executives by Savvis, 70 percent of IT decision makers are using or plan to use cloud computing in their own enterprises within 24 months.
While concerns about security, identity, SLAs, and other topics are still on the minds of many IT pros, those concerns are gradually being addressed by cloud providers. (My colleague Michele Crockett writes about the skills that IT pros need to fit into the new cloud economy, as cloud-savvy IT staff is essential to successful cloud adoption.) While cloud computing may not be a complete solution for every enterprise—nobody is talking about ditching internal data centers yet, and probably never will—a number of pressing factors are driving the growth of cloud computing. I’ll cover some of the biggest drivers towards cloud computing adoption here.
Improved IT Agility
As recently as a few years ago, it took far too long for many IT departments to respond to increasing demand for computing capacity. Too much paperwork, too many approvals, and a reliance on hard-to-deploy physical servers meant that IT was often slow to respond to variable organizational needs. Virtualization helped that situation immensely, and the arrival of cloud computing gives IT organizations even more of an ability to easily (and cost-effectively) expand and reduce computing resources to meet fluctuating demands.
Cost Savings and ROI
Cloud computing isn’t a panacea, but there are clear-cut cases where moving part of your IT infrastructure to the cloud makes solid operational and financial sense. Here at Penton Media we recently moved from a cumbersome legacy email newsletter tool—developed in house—that required an ongoing (and expensive) commitment in terms of user training and application maintenance to a new cloud-based email newsletter solution. If you have legacy software applications in your own organization, are they really worth the time, expense, and human capital needed to keep them running when superior cloud-based alternatives are available?
Private Cloud vs. Public Cloud
The concept of the private cloud has gathered steam over the past 12 months. Public cloud computing services generally rely on having your data on someone else’s infrastructure. That can be a non-starter for many IT administrators, especially if your organization operates under tricky auditing, compliance, or data location requirements. That’s where the private cloud steps in: Leveraging virtualization and commodity hardware, the private cloud can provide some of the elastic benefits of public cloud computing without some of the inherent risks that public cloud computing still needs to address.
Cloud-Savvy IT Staff
A new breed of IT professionals is stepping into leadership positions in many organizations. Some fear that cloud computing could mean the end of their careers, but savvy IT pros realize that someone in the organization has to take the lead in selecting what IT platforms and services are moved to the cloud while simultaneously educating management and the rest of the organization why other elements aren’t good candidates for cloud computing treatment.
Many organizations are eagerly recruiting skilled IT professionals who not only have a grasp of the technical aspects of in-house IT, but can also champion and facilitate the adoption of cloud computing products and services. I’ve heard firsthand that IT professionals who can simultaneously balance IT and tech needs while meeting the strategic needs of the business are a hot commodity, and business leaders should make every effort to retain and reward qualified staff and spend the necessary capital to train and reward the next generation of IT leadership.
Unfortunately for many organizations security is a significant weakness of cloud computing.
Cloud computing is real handy for me, especially because I’m working off at leat 3 separate computers and my Droid, but using some server in the sky for backup (Carbonite, etc.), is kinda scary. I can go back in time and come up with some really big names that have come and gone. I don’t want my data on a server owned by someone who may go belly-up.
But let's pretend like it's something NEW NEW NEW.
Cloud computing = users on terminals.
Composite mainframe, anyone? LOL
Could computing is more than putting users on terminals. Its outsourcing the infrastructure of your organization.
Rather then procuring and installing a new server in an overloaded datacenter. A process which can take several weeks.
You can build a new server on Amazon in 30 mins.
The computer consulting crowd is trying to push this down our throats.
People want to spy on and censor your data, report anything "fishy" you say to The Won, disclose all your stuff to the [other] bad guys in data center breaches, and have the opportunity to charge you again later if you want to keep using your own data?
Good luck with the downtime.
yeah well I didnt say it was perfect
google has the same problem with downtime.
“The computer consulting crowd is trying to push this down our throats. “
Only because they are giving CFO’s the answer they want; cheaper IT infrastructure.
Cloud computing is going to require explosive growth in distributed databases to provide adequate security, flexibity, and speed.
Cloud computing is a great solution if you intend to share your corp info with hackers.
This is getting pushed down our throats by the IT crowd.
No weaker than client-server....
much weaker than client server.
The hosting company (amazon, Google) has access to the physical box and data. This causes problems with compliance and lack of control.
Since most of these servers are virtual you have the hypervisor level. Your server is only as secure as the least secure server on that build. Additionally your server can be targeted from those other servers.
” I don?t want my data on a server owned by someone who may go belly-up.”
I don’t think Microsoft is going belly up anytime soon according to their z-score.
In the sense that they’re talking here, cloud computing basically means outsourcing your servers. I have only one clear-cut case in my head where cloud would beat having your own datacenter. If you have a peak time of year where you need twice the computing power, it’s better to pay your cloud provider for the extra muscle for that short time rather than buy the extra hardware and keep it idle most of the time.
OTOH, the only reason Amazon got into the cloud business is that their infrastructure is set up to handle the Christmas load, so Amazon has massive idle capacity for most of the rest of the year (this is also why people recently found out it’s practically impossible to DDOS Amazon). So, if you are in this peak situation, you might as well buy the hardware and become a cloud provider yourself.
Cloud Computing ultimately results in the vanishing of personhood and individual freedom. All lives come under virtual data gathering and manipulative control in service to the controlling entity.
While not mentioned in the article, the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection totally enclosed and run by the Fed Reserve for data gathering and financial manipulation of the entire US population in partnership with the IRS and other institutions, is an example of an institution intended for cloud computing function.
I agree. The move to the cloud is being driven by financial reasons at the expense of security.
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