Your IT Department's Fear of the Cloud

WARNING - STRONG LANGUAGE IN THE VIDEO BELOW.

Information technology is going through a tremendous shift in organizations. I'm not just talking about the technology per se; I am referring to a more challenging issue - that of the traditional role of the "IT" and its leadership That role in many organizations needs to change and how.

Used to be that the application of technologies in organizations required high levels of understanding around the technical aspects of it all. Think of the days when hobbyists would construct their own personal computers, ala Apple, in a garage. Like the Wright Brothers, IT required at its core inventors with detailed oriented personalities who had to focus on great minutia to get something to do what needed to be done. The benefits of automating manual tasks utilizing RPG or other code was low hanging fruit and a different paradigm than today. To realize the benefits of technology today in organizations requires a deeper understanding of its deployment. There exists a wide range of methods to achieve results more easily and more inexpensively - thanks to the Cloud. Hence this post and video.

I can tell you that the TRUE adoption of the Cloud is not what many in IT claim or represent it to be,. Cloud adoption is being stifled by IT leadership in many instances mostly out of fear. Fear of losing jobs; fear of being irrelevant; fear of the unknown. Business leaders need to GET THEIR HANDS around what the Cloud really is and start evaluating their options because in most cases the options are much more worthy of pursuit then they might know or are being told.  My partner Clint Lee brought the video below to my atention. It is an actual discussion in an organization between an internal customer and an IT leader. It is not an exaggeration.Watch it (pardon the expletives) and believe me when I tell you - YOU NEED TO EVALUATE THE REAL CLOUD. Feel free to contact me if you need any assistance.

The Cloud and Total Cost of Ownership

My partner and I consult with a variety of firms on the topic of cloud adoption. It is surprising how few really understand the strategic and ROI benefits of its application. Total Cost of Ownership is an important number to use when evaluating IT and in particular when comparing extant systems to cloud solutions. Often the thinking is that what an organization is using now is a better place than making a change - and the primary driver in most people's minds is cost. Utilizing TCO is the only way managers can evaluate apples to apples. Often there are apples to oranges comparisons and this is why more organizations aren't jumping into the cloud faster. They simply aren't doing the proper math to realize the savings.

My friend and partner Clint S. Lee recently shared this post on a new tool to help you evaluate TCO.

Use this interesting evaluation tool. See what your organization is missing by not embracing the cloud.

Are Companies "Slowly" Adopting Cloud Computing ? NYT Says Yes

Brad Stone and Ashlee Vance recently wrote in the NYT that companies are "Slowly" Joining the Cloud. They're joining alright, but probably more quickly than people might realize. This is particularly true when one realizes how fast startups and smaller more agile firms are jumping onto the Cloud bandwagon because it just doesn't make any sense not to. Here is a direct quote from the article.

When given a clean slate, many new companies have chosen a full embrace of the cloud model, figuring the technology industry has matured to the point were these types of services make basic business sense. For example, Arista Networks, a five-year-old company that makes networking equipment, runs its sales software with a cloud software company called NetSuite, its corporate e-mail on Google Apps, and other Web infrastructure with Amazon.com.

“It’s so much easier,” said Andreas von Bechtolsheim, the co-founder Arista and Sun Microsystems and one of earliest investors in Google and VMware. “For a new company like us, you would just never build a traditional data center anymore.”

And this is where the real story lies. You see while larger organizations might be wary of the Cloud, each day they fail to shift their IT infrastructure to the Cloud is a day the competition is gaining a leg. Ironically, the ROI for larger corporations adopting the cloud is much higher than for smaller ones from a strictly cost benefit standpoint. From a strategic point of view the ROI is even higher.

Yes companies are adopting the Cloud and for the ones doing it slowly or not doing it at all, they best reconsider their long term viability.



What is Cloud Computing Exactly ?

I take for granted that many folks really understand what "Cloud Computing" is. Speaking at different events and talking with clients in the fitness, wellness, franchising and other industries, I've recently become more aware that many don't truly understand what the term "Cloud Computing" means.

Its really important for people in any organization to graps the concept of the "Cloud" because it is going to touch everything in our lives and organizations, if it hasn't already started to. Catch up on the basics with this video which is an excellent and short explaination of how Virtualization, Utility Computer and Software as a Service are converging to make Cloud Computing an important aspect of the world today.

Dreaming In the Clouds - Revolutionary Computing

For those who don't know, cloud computing is the next wave of rapid change, where organizations, even small ones with limited resources, will innovate by using tools that largely remove the IT department as an island that restricts rapid adoption and instead empowers the best ideas to drive innovation - very fast. The cloud is a metaphor for the Internet and as an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals. It is a style of computing where IT-related capabilities are provided as a service, allowing users to access technology-enabled services from the Internet or "in the cloud", without knowledge of, expertise with, or control over the technology infrastructure that supports them. Salesforce.com and its development platform is the leading tool being adopted by users to realize the power of cloud computing. It is truly a dream for all the innovation that will result and the trailer from dreamforce represents the unbelievable power it will unleash.