Cloud Computing has matured greatly in the last year and is now a major technology shift. Basically, Cloud Computing means running applications across the Internet. In some senses the “cloud” is just a metaphor for the Internet itself. Organizations outsource applications to vendors who host these applications in their own data centers. Organizations access them over the Internet using a web browser.
With Cloud Computing, instead of owning a specific server or software license for an application, an organization pays a monthly fee. Details of hardware and software provisioning, configuration, management, monitoring, disaster recovery, etc. are provided via the Cloud vendor thereby decreasing the administrative and technical burden on organizations.
Cloud Computing has become feasible by the latest increases in Internet bandwidth, storage capacity and server speed as well as advances in software and tools. As each of these becomes ever more powerful, the value proposition of Cloud Computing becomes more compelling.
Major vendors such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google and others now have Cloud offerings. These companies have the capability to massively scale data centers to accommodate the demands of customers. Also, almost all organizations cannot provide an environment that is nearly as bullet-proof as these vendors can provide. The recent competition between HP and Dell over 3Par shows that large vendors are placing big bets on Cloud Computing as a new IT paradigm.
A major inducement to Cloud Computing is that the start-up costs are much smaller than provisioning the same application in house. However, it is not necessarily true that Cloud Computing is less expensive in the long term. An analysis of the economics of in-house IT infrastructure versus a Cloud implementation needs to consider not only the initial purchase of the hardware and software, but also the hidden costs of the on-premises power and cooling, the costs of the staff to properly maintain the infrastructure, software licensing costs, etc. Furthermore, it is likely that as more competition comes to Cloud Computing as well as continuing improvements in computing overall, that costs will decline or remain steady while the value of the offerings continue to improve.
All organizations should now begin serious efforts to move at least some of the IT infrastructure to the Cloud. If you would like to discuss this in more depth or if you would like to put together a plan, please send an email to ed.mchugh@tekexpertise.com.
