Who would have thought that nephology would become so significant in IT?! Clouds are the discussion topic of the moment and represent the business model many vendors and user enterprises are aspiring to deliver. However, like its meteorological counterpart, cloud computing is often insubstantial on closer inspection and likely to rain on the virtualisation parade.
What the prudent network professional has to separate is the myth from the reality of cloud design, aggravated by aggressive marketing that sometimes tries to squeeze almost any old technology other than Betamax into what is turning out to have significant consequences, not least in network design.
For example, you cannot just adopt cloud computing; you have to prepare the ground. Many IT departments will have a long road to travel to migrate to an in-house IT service-based approach or to prune their infrastructures sufficiently to outsource to a cloud provider without difficulty. There will have to be a lot of sorting out internally, ensuring data and applications are stored where you want them, rather like clearing out the spare room before taking in a lodger whose rent should help with the bills.
Hits and myths
Some organisations might, at first sight, find the promise of distributing data wherever it is needed in the network less than appealing. There could be regulatory compliance issues over risk management to consider and new security controls and vetting procedures.
No-one in their right mind is going to rip out a perfectly serviceable network and replace it with an untested cloud architecture. The IT industry evolves – albeit at a rapid pace – it does not slash and burn, whatever the hype merchants might say. Many organisations are still reliant on mainframes, after all.
The cloud model will be approached cautiously, perhaps outsourcing the commodity items first – email and content archiving, for instance – to see how the new cloud “specialists” perform in terms of cost and service.
Another myth is that the IT director will no longer be at the heart of network activity. While most organizations will probably adopt some elements of cloud computing over the next five years, that role will evolve, just as it has over the previous five years. It will likely be more challenging, juggling internal and external services and hopefully having a far more strategic role than that of firefighter and game warden.
This is not a time for buying a pig in a poke: it is a time for a sense of adventure tempered by good old common sense.
Join Rackspace at IP Expo where tey will help educate on Cloud in the real world/Myths & realities. Or perhaps you are interested on how to embark on a Journey to the Cloud? If so, join VMware, Cisco and EMC for an overview and discussion of the “private cloud” vision, and to learn how the technologies of today provide the building blocks for the cloud computing of tomorrow.
