IT Professionals Get The Nudge Toward Cloud From Microsoft

By Marty Nuckles

Part 1: Homework
When I got the request to review the article “Microsoft pushes cloud computing”, the first thing I did was to make sure that I had clear understanding of the term “cloud computing”. I set out to make sure that I knew the difference between it and other ideas such as “Software as a Service”, “Grid Computing”, “Platform as a Service”, “Scalable, Virtualized, Business Applications” and a dozen other variations on the theme. As I soon discovered, there isn’t much steak or sizzle here. There isn’t anything here that I haven’t seen or heard before. A motley crew of vendors, marketers and others, each pushing their technology, that’s about it. And, most certainly, there is no clear definition or technology standard here.
A few cynics have called it the “marketing phrase de jour”. One of the more interesting cynical reviews is “Why Cloud Computing is for the birds" by Mike Elgan and I found it funny that Cloud Computing Journal has an article titled, “21 Experts define cloud computing”. Why does it take 21 experts to define it? It reminds me of those light bulb jokes we used to tell.

I came away from my homework with several conclusions. The first one is: this is an idea in its infancy. It is closer to a marketing banner than a solid technology or a foundation for long term IT planning and deployment. Most IT departments and IT planners should be commended for casting a skeptical eye on the cloud computing hype and the cloud computing marketing efforts of hardware and software vendors.

Part 2: Building my perspective
Does this mean that cloud computing should simply be consigned to the trash bin reserved for marketing hype? No, it doesn’t. There are some legitimate issues that it addresses and in time in may offer real solutions to some thorny IT problems. We have all lived through software and hardware upgrades that set us back weeks and months. We have all lived through the problems of systems management, systems configuration and systems security. Being able to pass those concerns off to someone else or something else, such as the cloud, is an appealing proposition. If it saved time and money, that would be even more attractive. I would imagine that we are in a situation similar to the one our grandparents might have experienced when the telephone system moved towards standardization in early part of the twentieth century. It might have seemed like a loss of control and a risk, but the benefits of self-service dialing and the reliability of the utility proved out. Ditto for the change from rotary dial to digital phones. That lead to my second conclusion: give the infant time to grow up and try to imagine what might be possible. After all, the switch from rotary phones to digital made it possible for me to get my bank balance at 4 AM while I was on a business trip to Philadelphia and when I needed three more extensions for my home phone, I just went down to Costco, bought a base station with three remote unit and in a couple of minutes, I had phones in every room that I wanted.

I’m still trying to work out the target market for cloud computing and that remains hazy (pardon the pun). Cloud computing seems to appeal to the “big boys” first and foremost. They’ve got the biggest needs for systems management, scalability as well as the biggest need to save money. I can’t see the appeal for small and medium sized IT shops. Nor can I see the appeal for people who believe that their data is their most valuable asset. There are some pretty serious data privacy, data security and data reliability issues here. HIPPA is the first example that comes to mind. As an IT planner, I would need a lot of proof that these issues had been solved and that there were no vulnerabilities before I moved my company’s IT infrastructure to a cloud based solution.

I would be interested in hearing your opinions and if you have them, I would like to hear about experiences in implementing cloud computing.

Related Link:

http://searchwindowsserver.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid68_gci1510373,00.html