Embrace cloud or die
Wednesday, 30 June 2010 07:05.
It always amazes me
when techies resist change. They owe their livelihood to the rapid changes in
technology and the only reason we can do business with the global reach and
ease of delivery today is due to the amazing developments that has taken place
over the last 40 years. It reminds me of a saying , "the only constant is
change"
. Mathematicians and physics bods will no doubt disagree (the speed
of light for example), so maybe we should caveat that to "the only
constant situation in your life is change". In life, you adapt or die.
Cloud computing is nothing more than outsourcing. People have been outsourcing
for generations (if not millennia). Sure, the way the press touts "The
Cloud" sounds different, but it is essentially the same infrastructure we
have been using for many years. To quote dictionary.com: outsource (of a
company or organization) to purchase (goods) or subcontract (services) from an
outside supplier or source. Perhaps the massive Amazon EC2 cloud sounds
different but in actuality it is just a new slant on an old idea.
Maybe IT personnel think they will become less relevant if they lose control of
their hardware. I would suggest the idea that they should actually become more
relevant. Loosened from the shackles of having to manage the physical devices,
power, racking etc it actually leaves them time to do what they should be
doing. Giving the organisation a platform to grow and adapt. It enables the IT
department to not worry about their data centre and what happens if server A's
hard drive crashes. Going to the cloud should give the IT department a new
lease of life and new relevancy. Currently executives see the IT department as
the department of "NO". Moving at least some of the current IT
infrastructure to an external, or internal, cloud gives the ability to become
the department of "NOW!"
The insular culture of the IT department needs to change and embrace the
adaptability of the outsourced solution. SLAs need to be set and monitored very
closely. Infrastructure needs to be designed to utilise the geographical scale
and feature set of the solution. Creative thinking needs to be encouraged.
If this is done, the IT department and everyone in it will be seen as, not just
a cost centre, but helping to accelerate the company's bottom line; and become
a positive driver for success.
