Cloud Hosting

IT departments around the globe should be quaking in their boots at the mere mention of the word "cloud". In much the same way that the advent of the internet has reduced the number of magazine and newspaper journalists, the cloud will progressively over time, steadily, but most certainly, remove the need for in-house tech gurus.

Public Concensus of the cloud

Computing in the cloud certainly has its sceptics...To the extreme you've got the likes of Larry Ellison (founder of Oracle) claiming that the term 'cloud' is predominantly media hype and that he "can't think of anything he would do differently in light of the cloud". Despite this bold statement, Oracle proceeded to purchase the company with the motto "the network is the computer" - Sun Microsystems. These guys predicted the cloud 20 years ago and having been working towards it ever since...Hmmm.

Slightly further up on the cloud popularity meter we have Richard Stallman (Founder of GNU) who at least admits that the cloud exists in its own right, but urges users simply not to use it due to vendor lock-in.

There are always critics and non-believers. On the other extreme we have those who love predicting "cloud storms" more than Michael Fish himself. Which fool once said that the internet would be a mesh of 12 computers at most? They were wrong by a factor of 11. The cloud will grow to be a supercomputer that interacts with everything we do - a second world, such is the belief of Kevin Kelly from Wired Magazine.

The facts

The buy-in from industry experts in this scenario is largely irrelevant, the cloud is gaining traction, fact. Companies are popping up around the globe with their own cloud architecture and utility billing aimed at SME's who can't afford and don't have the resource to load-balance a bunch of servers that they need to get their new product off the ground. Whilst the uptake is slow this is put down to consumer trust and awareness, or rather the lack of - studies show that only a minority really understand the concept of cloud computing and the advantages that can be gained.

The problems

Computing in the cloud certainly has its problems...the list is rather daunting: data security, interoperability, portability, governance, local jurisdiction to name a few. But the cloud is very much in development and incentives such as the Open Cloud Manifesto are making massive inroads.

The bright side...

As an employee in the IT dept. of a multi-national you probably don't need to start writing your notice just yet. Consider that the cloud isn't necessarily an atomic choice; it is possible to half be in the cloud with your feet still firmly on the ground. The majority of larger organisations will have lengthy meetings to determine what can and can't be hosted in the cloud...Sensitive data will be a definite "no, no" whilst the less important 'stuff' can be trialled.

The doom and gloom...

Over time, however, expect the cost savings of hosting in the cloud to provoke profit seekers into action, migrating more and more of their in-house data into the cloud. Keep your eye on it, otherwise your sell by date might sneak up on you and bite you hard.