Loraine Lawson has done a great job in providing further analysis of Kevin Fogarty article cloud computing reality checks over at Computerworld.
Loraine points out some of the key issues of the article, including:
"Cloud platforms are all different, so migration, support, cost and capacity issues also will be different according to platform."
This is what I think surprises most people about integration between the enterprise and a cloud provider. The APIs, or other points of integration that the cloud computing providers offer are all very different in terms of functionality and quality of the service.
"You may find existing integration points break when you try to move one end point into the cloud - and odds are 10 to 1 your legacy systems are deeply integrated with many, many other on-premise systems."
Integration is almost always a complex problem. Indeed, I wrote a book on the topic, and if you think this is about linking your CRM system with a cloud provider and you're done, you have another thing coming. This is about understand the data you're integrating, including data latency, data governance, semantic mediation, etc.. In for a penny, in for a pound.
"Licenses are still very much tied to boxes, which can create problems when you're trying to move a legacy app built on a commercial database."We've not even thought through this yet. We're so interested in cloud computing, we've not taken time to look at our existing ULAs. You may not like what you signed just a few years ago, when it comes to migrating to the cloud.
"The legacy app might also determine which cloud solution you can even consider"...
While you may be thinking Amazon you may end up with plan B, or plan C. You need to consider your "as is" architecture, and then the solution you need.
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