Datasouth

Is your head in the Enterprise Clouds?

Friday, 21 August 2009

It’s probably one of the biggest questions confronting anyone doing their strategic information technology planning. How much of a role can cloud computing play in enterprise IT?

Bureau computing, ASP, Utility computing, On-Demand, Grid computing. They are just some of the terms that have been used over time to describe the approach of a service provider remotely hosting your computer systems or services. What is causing this latest round of excitement with cloud computing? After all, network architects have been drawing clouds on their diagrams for 15 years.

Traditionally, hosting outside your own data centre has been focussed on applications. Vendors would offer the option of giving you access to a business application hosted on their premises. In this new era the offering has got deeper – cloud computing covers everything from remote offering of processing power, application hosting and data storage to even hosting software code.

Companies can use programming tools that are entirely hosted (or ‘in the cloud’) to build applications that are hosted on third party servers. All your users need is some sort of presentation device attached to a big fat internet pipe.

These opportunities have led to optimistic forecasts about cloud computing. The Compliance Research Group expects it to grow from $6.4 billion worldwide in 2008 to $14.8 billion in 2012.

A real indicator of cloud computing’s rise is the involvement of all the big industry players. Microsoft particularly has aggressively moved into the space with Azure platform, which will allow companies to host key applications like Office, SharePoint or Dynamics on Microsoft data centres. Companies will also be able to build and host applications on the Azure platform, and then integrate them with other hosted systems or on those that are hosted internally.

Sounds exciting, but what are the benefits to the enterprise? Cloud computing has a lot of promise for under pressure corporate information technology departments. In a highly competitive business environment they are expected to continually deliver innovative applications that help improve company efficiency, while coping with less staff and less resources. Cloud computing can potentially enable them to build smart new applications at lower overall cost.

There is still a lot of resistance amongst CIOs. Research suggested by Computerworld amongst leading US CIOs suggested the majority were still reserving judgement on cloud computing. Security was the major concern, followed closely by availability and reliability.

Security is an obvious one. No CIO wants to tell their CEO that a hacker has stolen their customer database from the vendor’s data centre. Of course in-house hosting may be no more secure, but the perception of risk with remotely hosted applications is an issue.

There is also the ‘deep diver’s umbilical’ issue. Just like those divers who brave super depths supported by a tube supplying air and communications, an enterprise can be crippled if core applications are unavailable or at least performing poorly, for any length of time. Availability is improving all the time, but the perception of risk is still too great for many IT managers.

As for any IT system there is the fear that companies could become ‘locked-in’ by their cloud computing provider. There are concerns that cloud computing technology platforms are not always open, and it is much harder to extract applications or code and go to another cloud computing provider.

The Gartner Group’s view on the phenomenon is interesting. They recently released their 2009 Hype Cycle Report which looked at the status of 1,650 technologies and trends in 79 technology, topic, and industry areas.

“The levels of hype around cloud computing in the IT industry are deafening, with every vendor expounding its cloud strategy and variations, such as private cloud computing and hybrid approaches, compounding the hype,” the report said. Gartner also estimated that cloud computing would bring real benefit to the mainstream business within five years.

While enterprises can resist the temptation to rush to cloud computing, it is something that requires serious evaluation and perhaps trialling with non-core applications. If you’d like to discuss the implications of cloud computing for your information technology, contact Datasouth to talk to a consultant.

Datasouth specialises in the provision of technology solutions that assists organisations in enhancing their business by improved information flow and productivity. As an organisation that has been providing advice to government and corporate clients for over fifteen years, we can advise, design and implement solutions that truly provide a competitive edge and reduced cost structures.

To better understand how we may help you to drive your business forward, please contact Datasouth to discuss your specific requirements.