First off, let me make myself clear. I firmly believe that Cloud Computing, in its various forms, is real, absolutely inevitable and will completely revolutionize the form and role of the IT Organization. Some readers will look at that sentence and laugh – it’s like saying “day will pass into night.” Obvious, beyond dispute, devoid of insight. Others will also laugh at my opening proclamation – only in their case, because my assertion is completely ridiculous to them – beyond belief. Of course, to many businesses, especially smaller and medium sized, Cloud Computing is already real, and has been for some time. So, feel free to debate me (comments and opposing views highly welcome!) but I will stick with my beliefs on this.
For IT Leaders, the Cloud Changes Everything!
For me, the big question is, what does the migration to Cloud Computing mean for today’s IT organization? What structural changes are necessary to successfully leverage Cloud Computing capabilities? How quickly should you be moving IT services to the Cloud? How does the Cloud impact the IT Service Portfolio and the capabilities needed to deliver those services? What are the implications for IT competencies? How does business-IT governance change in a Cloud Computing world?
I think these are important questions whose answers are not yet totally clear. As I reflect back on the shift from mainframe to client-server computing, many IT organizations were less than stellar at anticipating needed changes. As a result, they experienced more bumps and potholes in that journey than was necessary. For example, for all that had been learned about back-up and recovery in a mainframe world, the onset of client-server computing created gaping holes in the IT organization’s ability to cope with data protection and loss at the Personal Computer level. The same was true for the evolution from client-server to the web – many of the controls put in place for client-server computing were ineffective (and some even counter-productive) as more work moved to the Internet.
Which Aspects of Cloud Computing Could Bite Your IT Organization?
In the next few posts I will explore some of IT organizational implications of Cloud Computing. Aspects we will examine will include:
- Mobility implications – both for the business user and the IT professional charged with enabling that user.
- The distinctions between Infrastructure as a Service, Applications as a Service, Platform as a Service, Development as a Service and Business Process Services and how these impact IT organizations.
- The distinctions between Public, Private and Community Clouds and their implications for IT.
- Accounting implications, including funding and budgeting.
- Implications for Business-IT Governance.
- Security and Privacy.
- Implications for the work teams and flow of work involved in requirements analysis to solutioning.
- Impact on Enterprise Architecture.
- Implications for IT Services and Service Management.
Please weigh in – let us know your experiences, issues and concerns about the shift to the Cloud. Do you agree with my assessment that this shift is inevitable? How fast do you see it happening? What does it mean for you personally, and for your career?
Filed under: IT Maturity Tagged: | Architecture, Business process, business-IT convergence, Business-IT Governance, Cloud computing, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Architecture, IT governance, IT infrastructure, IT transformation, Next Generation Enterprise, organizational change management, Web 2.0
Good kickoff article, Vaughan!
Working for a company that is in the process of transitioning its offerings from on-premise to SaaS-based, we have encountered the full spectrum of change adoption reactions from prospects & clients and yet, Application SaaS has been “out there” for a long time.
The funny thing is that when we experienced an outtage with our hosted e-mail provider that turned out to be caused by a network routing issue midway between “us & them”, that definitely increased my level of empathy for such reactions and these sorts of situations definitely contribute to the FUD factor that clouds (not to be too pun’ny) the decision for many companies.
As Infrastructure, BP & Platform-based cloud computing hit much closer to core services and competencies, I believe a lot of companies will choose to adopt the Missouri “show me” state motto! Some early adopters may reap benefits but for most, ROI is likely to be intangible until services & “good” practices have matured.
Great points, thank you Kiron! I recognize that there are ‘rough edges’ (to put it mildly) and that the state of the art is not ready for full blown migration to the cloud for most companies.
However, I also believe that there are some relatively safe ways to work the learning curve and gain some experience and benefits without risking the farm. I also believe that companies who are not aggressively trying to figure this all out – but rather (to your point) waiting to be ‘shown’ will be caught short. It may be their business customers who end up being the ones ‘showing them’ and by then IT will be disenfranchised.
Good Afternoon Vaughan – definitely good timing
First – one thing that gets overlooked is the legal jurisdictional implications when data is stored in a a location other than the business.
For example – as a Canadian business, if my provider is in California – am I under Canadian law or California law as far as Patriot Act – data breach notification etc?
And for IT – I see it spelling the demise of lower level “plug in the wires” IT – with more emphasis that will have to be placed on data governance, analysis and lets call it “stewardship”
Regards
Thanks, Elliot! I will try to get into the legal implications – as you note, they can get complicated!
Cloud computing seems a logival evolution in thetechnology space. My take is that businesses would liie to see if this reduces their Capital investments, improves flexilibity and maintains security and for I/T folks it should give speed to market. Of course reliabilitty is assumed.
In a country like India, where mobile phones are more wide spread than PCs, will Cloud computing offer easier Intra-service provider integration ?
Venkat