Dr. Jim Anderson tackles the question that all CIO’s are asking: just exactly what is “cloud computing”?
Dr. Anderson identifies the 4 different flavors of cloud computing that are available and points out how a CIO would go about using each one of them.
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If IT was a game show and you were a contestant on it, right now it sure seems as though you could correctly any question that you were asked by replying
The reason that we’re talking about cloud computing is because it’s ushered in an era of “software as a service”, or SaaS if you want to be cool. The reason that CIOs like to talk about SaaS based applications that run in the cloud is because they offer an opportunity to
A single user’s subscription to a SaaS application generally costs a CIO about $10 – $50 per month. The beauty of this approach is that that cost includes maintenance, support, and even the hardware that the application runs on. Oh, and all of a sudden your users can
SaaS (and Cloud Computing) is growing like a weed right now. The folks over at Gartner are telling us that in the business software market, SaaS offerings make up about 9% of what’s out there right now and
This is where CIOs are starting to see problems pop up. Since the whole SaaS market is growing so fast, even the people who work in it are finding themselves
Unlike the glowing brochures that you’ll get from SaaS providers and the industry rag articles that are falling over themselves saying that Cloud Computing is the “next big thing”, CIOs who are on the front lines are reporting that SaaS is
In fact, some companies that went down the SaaS route are now
In the end,
In the initial years, yes –
The world of IT keeps changing all the time and as CIO you’re going to have to
CIOs on the frontlines of SaaS deployments are reporting that they are
Right now Cloud Computing and SaaS are
- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Department Leadership Skills™
Question For You: Do you think that IT headcount reductions should be a benefit of a SaaS deployment?
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When you become CIO, one of your main jobs will be to lead the IT department though changes. However, here is where
Ok, enough of this cloud stuff already! The field of IT is just like every other field out there and we have our own share of trendy topics – cloud computing sure seems to the one that we’re dealing with right now. With all of the magazine articles on clouds and conferences going on, you’d think that every CIO and CEO has a good understanding of just exactly what a cloud is. Well, you’d be wrong…
In order to be a successful CIO, you’re going to have to have the support of the rest of your firm’s Senior Management. I guess one good thing is that it’s become clear that firm’s senior management have been reading the headlines and actually recognize the term “cloud computing”. Mark McDonald over at Gartner has been asking around to find out just how deep this knowledge goes.
Back in 2009 (was it really that long ago?) only about 5% of a firm’s senior management recognized the term. That’s popped up to 37% these days (remember that not everyone works in IT!)
To take this one step further, they also appear to know that cloud computing is important. Those senior managers now list cloud computing as being one of their top 5 IT priorities.
Good CIOs understand that in the field of IT, there is no such thing as just one magical technology. Instead, solutions to difficult business challenges are built using multiple IT technologies that all have to work together.
The same level of understanding about how the world of IT works is not shared by the rest of most firm’s senior management. Mark McDonald’s research shows that too little is fully understood about how cloud computing really works.
Clouds are built using three separate pieces of IT technology:
In order to implement a cloud solution, firms need to adopt all three technologies. However, this point has not yet sunk in with most non-IT senior management.
Gartner’s research shows that most executives have very little interest in any of these technologies despite their belief that cloud computing is the way for their IT departments to go. Furthermore, roughly half of the executives surveyed believed that virtualization alone was the same thing as cloud computing.
Well, at least they all know that cloud computing exists and that’s got to be a good thing, right? Actually, no. Studies of new and emerging IT technologies have shown that they all seem to follow a predictable path.
Right now, most members of your firm’s senior management team are probably quite excited about the potential of cloud computing. Soon, this will change. As it becomes clear that this isn’t a magical cure (and cost reducer) that will solve all of your firm’s problems, cloud computing will move into what Gartner calls “the trough of disillusionment”. This is when people reject a novel new technology because it didn’t live up to its initial hype.
CIOs understand the true power of cloud computing. It offers a way to efficiently scale a firm’s computing infrastructure while at the same time allowing it to keep it’s IT operational costs under control.
Realizing that your senior management peers don’t quite fully “get” what cloud computing is and that they’ll soon decide that it’s not all that it was touted to be is an important understanding that we all need to have.
CIOs are going to have to continue to focus on finding ways to make use of cloud computing resources while incorporating its supporting technologies into the projects that they are working on today. Cloud computing will eventually arrive on the IT scene and it’s up to you to be ready when it comes.
- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Department Leadership Skills™
Question For You: Which of the three supporting technologies do you think is the most important to making cloud computing a success?
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If IT was a game show and you were a contestant on it, right now it sure seems as though you could correctly any question that you were asked by replying “cloud computing”. That’s because basically outsourcing parts of your company seems to be the answer to every question in IT right now. But is it really the right answer?
By Dr. Jim Anderson
CIOs Need To Make Sure That Cloud Computing Is Not Just A Fad
Does anyone besides me remember the big Furby craze that swept the U.S. in the early ’90′s? People went crazy for these little plush dolls and they started collecting them in hopes that they would one day be valuable. Well, that never happened and a lot of people got stuck with expensive toys that they couldn’t get rid of. Is is possible that the current cloud computing craze in IT could be another Furby fad that will fade away?
If a CIO can move beyond the hype, he/she needs to spend some time doing their homework in order to find out what kind of services a cloud could offer that their company could make use of. Neal Leavitt has spent some time studying cloud computing and has boiled cloud services down into four types of services:
The Forrester research company has done some investigating and they now claim that most company’s data centers are using less than 50% of their total capacity. Despite the hype that is currently surrounding cloud computing, Leavitt has uncovered three very good reasons for looking into having your firm start to use cloud computing:
It is all too easy for CIOs who are adverse to change to look at the current excitement over cloud computing and decide that it is yet another fad that will fade away in time. The reality is that cloud computing provides several different types of services that are useful to any IT department. This can’t be ignored.
Additionally, successfully adding cloud computing resources to the company’s existing IT infrastructure will mean that a CIOs will have found a way to apply IT to enable the rest of the company to grow quicker, move faster, and do more.
How much of your existing IT infrastructure do you think that your firm is currently using – more or less than 50%? Which of the four types of cloud computing services would have the most immediate value to your company? Why? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.
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Cloud computing is all the rage these days and everyone who is anyone is making plans to implement at least some flavor of it as soon as possible. It turns out that the decision to go with a cloud computing solution for your IT department might not be as simple as some would lead you to believe. There are challenges to successfully using a cloud and we need to talk about them…
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