What would it take for you to jump into cloud computing?

Michael Morisy

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Just curious if ITKE users have a set of criteria for what you'd want before switching over critical services to a cloud provider? As a recent article noted, IBM's Lotus iNotes and Cisco's WebEx Mail are going cloud, and Google's dropping rates in response. What are you moving over, and does data's "mission critical" status give you pause in moving over? Thanks for any thoughts! Michael

Asked: November 16, 2009 3:53 PM Last updated: December 9, 2014 6:50 PM

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Last updated: December 9, 2014 6:50 PM GMT

Michael Tidmarsh65,625 pts.
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Thanks. We'll let you know when a new response is added.

does data’s “mission critical” status give you pause in moving over? – Absolutely.

But that said, moving to the cloud is not simply a technical decision. Its a business decision.
Technically, the move to the cloud is easy. Pick a fairly reliable vendor, put in SLA requirements and test out the functionality and off you go.

But, from the business perspective, it gets into security and compliance amongst other things.
I dont think it is very clear at this time how those work into the cloud offerings.

—–

Rightly said, it is more of a Business Decision once it is through from IT. Business owners will have long list of serious queries to be addressed before they decide to put confidential, critical and important corporate data on Cloud. The two giant vendors in Cloud Computing – Google and IBM – both felt the need of some Standards and Regulations when it comes to Cloud Computing. The former is working on FISMA and later on ISO 27001 Standards for Cloud Computing.

On customer front, as per a latest news – it clearly states the need of some standards, commitment from vendor i.e. SLA before moving on Goggle’s cloud.

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ITKE Nov 16, 2009 5:06 PM GMT

Thanks, Nnf97. But with all the redundant backups and security promises, aren't vendors like Google and Amazon as trustworthy as the equipment you set up and the techs who manage it? Are you more concerned about the security aspect, or just more comfortable over all with having it in house where you can inspect all the measures around how the data is handled?

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STDSNSiscko Nov 17, 2009 7:51 PM GMT

I agree with Nnf97, I am a Netowrk Admin for a Credit Union and we just switched over to "TheCloud" last month. It was a business decision in part, other part was added levarage of utilizing the providers NetApp solutiion with our current NetApp for DR recovery and offsite data storage. There are certain concerns to keep in mind. One, all traffic sent through the could is on clear text, I have all traffic between sites encrypted. And two, there were a couple of hardware changes that needed to happen, but eventually these hardware changes were bound to happen.

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Michael Morisy Nov 17, 2009 8:19 PM GMT

Thanks STDSNSiscko. You say (as a lot of others have) "it was a business decision in part," and I'm curious whether, because it's more of a service, if the business side had a larger part of the conversation and decision making ability than the IT side compared to other IT decisions?

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Schmidtw Nov 19, 2009 6:23 PM GMT

Despite the security measures cloud computing companies claim to offer, there is still an issue with just not being comfortable having that managed elsewhere. What if someone hacks them? They now have all the data from all the clients. What if there is a natural disaster affecting their data center? Boom, gone. What if they are involved in a court case even if they are not in the wrong and your information gets subpoenaed? With the server sitting in the room next to me, and while managing the security features we do, I'm more than content knowing it's not going anywhere. I can't say the same for the cloud, and that's why we haven't switched. Hope this helps! -Schmidtw

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Kevin Beaver Nov 20, 2009 2:16 PM GMT

I want to hear about cloud providers' customer service directly from customers of theirs. Based on my experience cloud computing providers walk the talk with technical solutions but fall flat on their faces when it comes to customer service. To me, in-house control is still best in most situations.

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