What software and services do you trust to the cloud?
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Michael Morisy
720 pts.
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Q:
What software and services do you trust to the cloud?
Cloud computing, E-mail applications, Salesforce.com
What software you trust to outource to a cloud computing platform, and what software/services you would rather keep in house?

Would you let Google or another provider host your e-mail?
Is your sales team on SalesForce?

Do you have some guidelines on when you'll look to cloud hosted software vs. when you want to have more control, or is it more based on the maturity of the offerings?

Thanks for any feedback!
ASKED: Aug 25 2009  2:20 PM GMT
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Last Answered: Aug 25 2009  2:20 PM GMT by Michael Morisy   720 pts.
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mrdenny   46765 pts.  |   Aug 25 2009  3:36PM GMT

For us it to more of a cost issue. If it is more cost effective for us to host it we do. If it is more cost effective to have someone else host it we do that.

For example, we used to have a company hosting our email, but that started getting pricey, so we purchased Exchange and the needed CALs and we host it our selves now. About the only thing that we out source now is <a href="http://SalesForce.com" title="http://SalesForce. " target="_blank">SalesForce.com</a>, our sharepoint portal, and we rent racks from a company. Everything else sits on our servers in our racks.

 

Troy Tate   0 pts.  |   Aug 25 2009  3:42PM GMT

I think it is a good idea to cloud source services that you don’t want impacting your core business but that are important services. For example, services such as email spam and antivirus filtering are not necessarily a core business requirement and may actually have a negative impact on internal business users and systems. So, this is a service that is easily cloud sourced.

This cloud idea has been under different names in the past - application service providers (ASP’s), software as a service (SAAS) and so on. The risks and benefits haven’t changed. In fact, I first came across Techtarget stuff when they had their SearchASP website.

 

Michael Morisy   720 pts.  |   Aug 25 2009  5:49PM GMT

Thanks mrdenny and Troy for the feedback!

 

KevinBeaver   7610 pts.  |   Aug 28 2009  8:07PM GMT

I’m growing tired of the cloud hype myself. The bottom line is you have to ask yourself things like what’s critical to the business, what information absolutely cannot get into the hands of a third-party, what is going to save time/effort/money outsourcing, and so on.

When it comes to managing risks and security you could very well have the same issues to contend with regardless of where the information is processed and stored. Contracts and SLAs are a good risk management tactic but never ever assume that just because a third-party vendor or an employee is actually going to do what’s right just because they’ve signed a document saying they will.

Signing off on paper and what takes place in reality are quite often completely separate issues.

 
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