Governing the Infrastructure.

For most companies, cloud computing is still a nice marketing buzzword. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be thinking about it, or thinking about how to take advantage of it when it becomes viable for the broad market. And if you're doing that, it's probably also a good time to start thinking about how to make it viable for your company--and what types of governance and metrics are necessary if you go down a cloud computing road.

In a recent post, Dana Gardner from ZDNet moderates a discussion (and podcast) on some of the best practices that organizations should think about when moving to cloud computing, including SLAs and governance issues. In the podcast, he talks with Rebecca Lawson, Director of Service Management and Cloud Solutions at HP; Scott McClellan, Vice President and Chief Technologist of Scalable Computing and Infrastructure in HP's Technology Solutions Group, and Norman Lindsey, Chief Architect for Flexible Computing Services at EDS, an HP company, who highlight the role of SOA and governance in cloud computing environments.

The participants agreed that cloud computing isn't ready for prime time yet, but when it is, SLAs and governance will be important.

One of the key areas that I found most interesting was the part of the discussion where they explore how cloud computing can not only potentially help organizations take costs out of their IT budgets, but also deliver value back to the business, such as in the potential area of social networking. I believe that's an exciting opportunity for companies and one of the important aspects to long-term success with this approach.

All-in-all, though, the participants agreed that a service-centric approach to governance is crucial when looking at cloud computing, both to managing and reduces costs as well as have the right type of discipline available to take advantage of potential opportunities for generating increased value for the business. In other words, you can't take the car up to 110 MPH or accelerate around a curve if you don't have a good set of brakes, a steady hand, and a thoughtful brain driving the car and controlling it.