Consulting

All of the hype and hoopla that has attended cloud computing is finally dying down.  We’re almost in the place where cloud computing is… Read moreno longer being suggested as the miracle cure for what ails business. However, just in case you’re in an organization that thinks that the cloud will solve all of your problems, here are the top 5 reasons why it won’t:

#5 – No Inventory

The benefits of cloud computing rely on moving resources from some point inside your organization to an external provider.  It is fairly important to know what those resources are, and how they are being used, if any benefits are to be derived from moving them. You would be surprised to know the percentage of organizations that fail to have a good and current inventory of hardware and software that they depend upon.

If you don’t know what you have, you don’t know what you need.

#4 – Poor Security

Information security is about process, people and technology. While good people can compensate to some degree for bad process or technology, overall security is impaired when all three elements are not at their best.  Moving your technology resources (or assets) into the cloud does not automatically make those resources secure.  Employees with poor security habits will be just a careless with your organization’s assets in the cloud as on-premise, but the stakes are higher in the cloud since those assets are more accessible to others.

Security for your data is your concern, not your cloud vendors’.

#3 – Wrong People

Embracing the cloud – even a little bit – means relying on workers that are more versatile. This is especially true within your technology organization, where your staff is going to need to be able to manage more vendors, deal with changing standards, and integrate solutions across provider.  Some technology workers are not fond of the cloud, and will happily move on to organizations that are more on-premise focused.  If you don’t have the right people, your company will not be able to roll with the punches.

The cloud doesn’t turn average people into awesome ones – it allows good/great people to be more effective.

#2 – No Technology Strategy

How can you be sure that the cloud will provide the applications you need if you don’t have a plan for how your technology is managed?  Who will be looking out for bandwidth consumption?  Who will be making sure that you have enough redundancy?  Who will be keeping an eye on the provider?  The cloud doesn’t create strategy – it facilitates it.

#1 – No Business Plan

At the end of the day, your corporate vision and business plan drive all the other elements. What you buy, who you hire, what you protect, and what your business ultimately accomplishes, are all driven by your business plan.  If you don’t have one of those, or happen to have one that is flawed in some way, the cloud will not save you.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Just as a really expensive set of tools will not turn a random individual into an awesome (or even competent) carpenter, so too, the best marketing presentation will not turn an organization that is lacking in areas such as planning, staffing, and security into a corporate powerhouse.

Don’t fall for the hype.  Apply effective strategy and planning to reap real benefits from the cloud today – just as with other technologies that you evaluated and embraced.

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About the Author

http://cdn.blog-sap.com/cloud/files/2012/07/2012-06-06-ASB-Headshot.jpg"> class="alignleft" title="2012-06-06 ASB (Headshot)" src="http://cdn.blog-sap.com/cloud/files/2012/07/2012-06-06-ASB-Headshot-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="157" height="157" />Andrew S. Baker is a hands-on architect of advanced technology solutions that increase corporate agility, mitigate business risk, reduce operating costs, and facilitate business growth for organizations in the SMB market.  Mr. Baker has served for over 15 years as a trusted technology advisor to small and mid-sized organizations across many verticals, specializing in the areas of technology infrastructure, information security and cloud computing.

We’ve all been there before—trapped in a conference room during a dull marketing presentation that inspires yawns, makes your eyes glaze over,… Read moreand completely tune out. Cloud marketing presentations are no exception when it comes to inspiring ennui and boredom. But have you sat through a cloud vendor’s snooze-fest and been jarred back to consciousness by your internal early-warning system? Lori Janjigian at Focus was curious about what red flags folks are seeing, so she asked: “What are the top three things that scare you in the marketing presentation of a vendor providing cloud services?”

Stop snoring, wipe the drool from your chin, and be on the lookout for these warning signs…

BrainWave Consulting’s Andrew S. Baker has three very specific concerns, and sums them up succinctly:

• “Indiscriminate use of the term ‘seamless’ for items that you know will require interaction with someone


• “Absolutely no mention of backup and recovery options


• “The implication of automatic fail-over on one slide, when other slides show backups and disaster recovery as value-add services”

Anders Trolle-Schultz, managing partner at SaaS-it Consult, covers his eyes when vendors threaten to open the kimono. “Most of the presentations use the [idea that] Cloud = Value, and to be honest, cloud isn’t a value in itself. It is just a production method. Have you ever heard Coca-Cola promote how they make Coca-Cola?” He adds that “Many IT vendors are selling cloud and not the value that The Cloud can bring.”

SummaLogic’s Robert Keahey gets granular, explaining what sets off his alert system during presos by IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS vendors. For cloud providers of infrastructure as a service (IaaS), Keahey is skeptical about claims of reliability. He says that customers should certainly expect an IaaS vendor to be reliable and responsive to their needs. But, being realistic, Keahey notes that “things eventually ‘go bump in the night,’ and outages do occur.” He’d rather see cloud providers “focus on resiliency, or the ability to minimize the impact of outages and sustain services as much as possible, and provide a manageable failover capability. Too many times we test our failover capabilities during a real failure. Not a good idea.”

PaaS providers can’t be believed when they spin the “develop on my platform and you can deploy anywhere” story, Keahey says. “It just doesn’t happen that way in the majority of cases. The unforeseen integration costs that ultimately surface can be significant and can derail even the best of cloud strategies. Integration of cloud-based services can be challenging. Add on top of that the issues of managing service levels for applications and services that are outside of your direct control, [and it] can be time-consuming and expensive. Look for cloud providers who can demonstrate real-world examples of customer solutions that have been implemented on their platform.”

Finally, Keahey doesn’t buy the “we’re cheaper because you don’t have any infrastructure or support staff costs” pitch from SasS providers. “Granted, those costs are transferred to the service provider and customers can leverage volume discounts to improve and control their costs,” he says. “But there are often other costs associated with user administration, configuration, customization, reporting, and accounting that cut into those savings.”

As cloud strategist at Mimecast, nothing raises Justin Pirie’s hackles like plain, old-fashioned cloudwashing. “The thing that really scares me is ‘cloudwashed’ systems that pretend to be [cloud systems] but aren’t,” he says. Pirie sees those claims coming from vendors who are “trying to ‘cloudify’ their existing systems without rebuilding or rearchitecting them. The customer could end up in the worst of all worlds, a crappy system out of their control. Watch out!” Pirie also warns that security claims should be taken with a grain of salt: “You need to understand whether the vendor has taken the right steps to secure your data, for the type of data that you’re going to hold with them, remembering not all data needs to be secured in the same way.” Due diligence is key, he says, and recommends that buyers “make sure it’s really a cloud service you’re buying—not some dressed up on-premise service—and make sure the security of the service matches up to the type of data you’re looking to store with them.”

What cloud vendor claims get your dander up? Are there claims that send up red flags when you hear them? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

About the Author

http://cdn.blog-sap.com/cloud/files/2012/09/alecwagner-new3.jpg"> class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-3772" title="alecwagner new" src="http://cdn.blog-sap.com/cloud/files/2012/09/alecwagner-new3-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150" />Alec Wagner is a writer, editor, custom content specialist, and content marketing professional. A former managing editor of infoworld.com, he has trained his eye on the enterprise technology space for more than a dozen years. A longtime digital nomad, he divides his time between San Francisco and the South of France. He remembers to thank The Cloud daily for enabling his globetrotting ways. A natural cynic, Mr. Wagner will remain skeptical of late-night infomercials for cloud services… until Guthy-Renker" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.guthy-renker.com/">Guthy-Renker jumps into the fray.