The cloud landscape is already heating up this year, not least in light of Gartner?s recent 2012 predictions, which has forecasted that the cloud will become an ?emerging market force? offering low cost services that change the structure and value of IT services as we know them. This means we can certainly expect to see cloud services increase massively in the coming year, given the wide-reaching benefits they can provide to businesses of all shapes and sizes.
Lowering the barrier to entry
Traditionally speaking, IT services platform adoption has been a big commitment for the CTO or IT director. A lot of thought, planning, and resource goes into researching, testing and ultimately determining if the platform is the right technology and business fit. However, the emergence of cloud-based technology and solutions has completely changed the game.
The nature of cloud computing solutions means they are easy to deploy and maintain. In addition to this, they are flexible and completely scalable to business needs. For example, with most services, businesses scale up, or down, in usage as and when the need arises and in line with business objectives and revenue. Cloud computing?s inherent scalability means the investment in the technology is relatively low, certainly when comparing it to non-cloud based solutions. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and public cloud infrastructures reduce the need for heavy, upfront CAPEX investments, making return on investment a lot easier to measure and quantify for the CTO.
These benefits mean the barrier to entry is much lower. While this has become a ?no-brainer? solution for businesses of any size in the current economic climate, cloud services will be especially pertinent amongst small businesses, start-ups, and new initiatives in the coming year, given their ability to grow IT infrastructure in line with the business. In fact, a whole new generation of business is already being built on this agility and elasticity that cloud computing affords, not least with the likes of Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce.com and of course Tata Communications offering simple cloud-based solutions at an attractive price.
Of course, the many benefits of the cloud aren?t strictly limited to SMBs ? many large enterprises and organisations have highly distributed business operations across multiple, often global locations, with large-scale growth or M&A activity driving the need for a flexible and scalable IT environment. And, cloud computing is quickly becoming the answer for them, offering an IT architecture that addresses these needs.
The Shape of the Cloud
To experience the benefits cloud computing can afford businesses of all types and sizes, it is first crucially important to understand the different types of ?cloud? deployment models.
Private cloud infrastructures are operated solely for an enterprise or organisation. It may be managed by the organisation itself or a third party, and may exist on-premise or off-premise. Private cloud infrastructures are the most expensive types of cloud computing infrastructures, and thus, are typically used by larger companies with regulation, compliance, and security requirements.
A community cloud is shared by several organisations to support a specific community with shared interests and is most commonly used by affiliated non-profit or for-profit groups. This could, for example, be a group of schools sharing specific resources such as payroll or HR, which affords them flexible access to cutting-edge services at a fraction of the cost, enabling their staff to instead focus on their students.
The public cloud is merely any cloud computing platform open for use to the public, whether it be individuals or large corporations. It is important to note that public clouds still ensure that individual cloud users are offered ample security and privacy.
It is also possible to distribute an application workload across two or more clouds (private, community, or public), which is commonly known as a hybrid cloud. Hybrid cloud services often give companies the best platform value and can help accommodate variable computing loads.
Taking Advantage of the New Paradigm
Applications hosted on the cloud are near limitless ? from desktop virtualisation for the flexible workforce to customer relationship management, marketing and sales force automation as well as human resources, workforce and enterprise content management. Providing immediate and instant access to applications anytime, anywhere, while lowering TCO and increasing efficiency and productivity at the same time make this new paradigm an obvious choice for CIOs and IT directors the world over.
The CIO must first have a solid understanding of what applications make business sense to move to the cloud initially. Make sure to fully understand how best to take advantage of this new computing paradigm when looking to adopt a cloud-based architecture ? or indeed, when looking to add additional applications and services to your cloud infrastructure.
Once you have this understanding, the rest will follow. In the meantime, here are a few tips on cloud computing best practices that I have developed through years of helping companies of varying sizes implement cloud-based solutions:
– Learn as much as you can about cloud computing and develop competencies to take advantage of the new paradigm
– Select the architecture, services, and level of adoption that suits your business along with the applications that will give you the best returns
– Pay attention to the differences based on being ?in the cloud?: there are general IT issues, including data security, compliance issues and regulations, where traditional measures may not work ? you need to understand these different points of weaknesses in order to successfully manage them
– Consider your IT architecture to maintain tight interlocks and solid processes and always read the fine print to make sure the level of management, service, and support you require is provided and whether these are part of the service or additional charges
– Be aware of lock-in contracts with your cloud vendor and avoid and minimise their potential impact
– Ensure that any potential cloud computing partner has a fully documented path for migrating applications and systems to your platform, as well as defined policies and procedures.
