Opinion: Cloud 9 for the enterprise or is our vision clouded?

Cloud computing is just the logical evolution of what has been happening with information technology since its inception.

In the early days, the first computers were custom built to fulfill specific purposes.

For example the Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer, (ENIAC) was the first general-purpose electronic computer built for calculating artillery firing tables for the US Army.

This activity was obviously context to the army’s main activity. Eventually, the activity of building computers became core for IBM.

In addition, to feed these computers, organisations had big IT shops that created custom programs for their businesses e.g. hand-built payroll and general ledger programs.

Eventually, packaged applications and system integrators dramatically reduced legacy built code and replaced it with their core offerings, packaged applications and consulting services.

To connect these computers organisations would run dedicated network connections between themselves and their partners e.g. leased lines and proprietary communication methods.

Eventually, the networking companies and finally global internet collaboration turned networking into core activities.

In each of the above examples, there has been a shift from context to core or, from built by me to built by others.

It’s exactly the same where cloud computing is concerned, it’s just a means of continuing technological progression by pushing storage, system management, encoding, load balancing, software deployment, hardware administration, and every other conceivable piece of the IT world, into the cloud for other organisations to more effectively and efficiently operate.

So why the recent flurry of activity around cloud computing?

Timing is everything

Firstly the time is right; we are at a stage where the majority of the technical barriers to making cloud computing a reality have been lifted.

There is now enough network infrastructure in place, that consists of reliable services delivered through data centres, that are built on computer and storage virtualisation technologies.

Service-orientated architecture (SOA) has also been developed providing methods for systems development and integration. Security advances mean that the cloud is now more secure than it ever has been.

Growing specialist core

Without exception, the more you specialise and focus on a task, the better you get at it.

If you are a system administrator and you spend all day managing 100 different applications in a corporate IT datacentre, you will need to re-learn and get up-to-speed on each application as you encounter an issue with it.

By comparison, if all you do is manage a single application, you will likely know every error code that the application can throw.

In any situation, you will know what to do and you will be able to proactively head off issues because of your experience with the application.

This is no different to a GP vs. a chiropractor. The chiropractor will be able to solve your back problems more quickly and more effectively than the GP.

Another reason for its popularity is that household names such as Google and Amazon have recently joined the cloud movement, offering business applications online that are accessed by a web browser.

Google Apps provides common business applications online, such as email and office productivity, whilst Amazon Web Services are a collection of remote computing services offered over the Internet by Amazon.com.

There are also more companies offering certain specialist services via the cloud such as CRM, HR and ERP systems.

Pay-as-you-go

Another win for cloud computing is its ability to significantly accelerate time-to-benefit.

The customer literally plugs in and uses the application functionality required.

It dramatically decreases up-front investment costs, people are able to literally pay for what they use, and the cloud provides economies of scale across a range of areas including security, specialised staffing and production infrastructure tuning and management.

All of these benefits are amplified by the current economic climate.

The cloud certainly supports Moore’s theory of core vs. context by enabling companies to concentrate on core activity that makes their business a success rather than have the distraction of heavy investments in infrastructure and resources for software applications.

In addition, as corporate management struggles to find ways of cutting costs, cloud computing should be a serious consideration as a means to meet this objective.’