New comment on "How do you explain cloud computing to your colleagues?"

LinkedIn Groups

Group: Cloud Computing, SaaS & Virtualization Discussion: How do you explain cloud computing to your colleagues? In my view the first problem is that most people think that cloud computing is about some sort of technology evolution and as a result we all completely miss the point. Cloud computing is not a technology or platform it is a method for delivering business services enabled by IT. Technology evolution is not the driver, the business is the driver as they desire dramatically more agility than is possible with an in-house IT service provider today. If as a business I need a sales forecasting solution, I could direct my IT department to build something or I could go to market and buy a “good enough” solution off the shelf. The provider of that solution will know exactly what the solution will cost and what quality can be provided so there are no outcome surprises. More importantly in addition to cost and service transparency I get the solution in weeks rather than years. The service provider might use enabling technologies such as virtualisation to provision the service quickly, but this technology is not itself a cloud solution. Accordingly, in house IT shops need to compete with what is essentially business process outsourcing and they need to do this by becoming much more agile as well as cost and quality transparent. This requires innovation in IT, more specifically innovation of the IT supply chain from demand through delivery to retirement. Gone are the days when the business sends an email to request a new service and somewhere deep in the noise of approval is a request for hardware which takes months to cost justify and implement. The future demands automated self-service oriented approval to delivery cycles measured in hours or even minuets and this is where enabling technologies such as service catalogs and virtualisation can be of some value. Integrating all these cloud services to produce a joined up business solution is the next problem to address and this will lead you to terms such as cloud commons or cloud broker which is a whole new matter to explore. Posted by Ricky Wallsworth

Like this comment » Comment » Stop Following Discussion »

LinkedIn values your privacy. At no time has LinkedIn made your email address available to any other LinkedIn user without your permission. ©2012, LinkedIn Corporation.