Yes, you've guessed correct - this post is about Cloud Computing or Clouds (hereinafter). It is a couple of years already when IT talks about the Clouds and has reached the point of Clouds classification. Now we can identify infrastructure/utility, software, open platform and other types of Clouds. Technology moves fast into the Clouds because it can do it. This, unfortunately, is not enough to answer the question - why do we need the Clouds?
The Clouds roots in Technology and is driven by theoretical and practical limitations of an enterprise in owning and maintaining the technological support on demand. This sounds like a Business need, not a Technology's one only. In this case, what is the business value of the Clouds?
The answer to this question is not that obvious as it might be thought at a glance. The Clouds as a professionally maintained HW/SW infrastructure is capable of extending and shrinking the offered capabilities providing certain savings for technology budget. But saving is a financial, not business notion; saving, by itself, does not generate any new business value. However, available Clouds resources used for new business product development can shorter the time-to-market - this is an intangible business value with non-guaranteed realisation.
Probably, it is the time to ask Business what it wants/needs from the Clouds capabilities, i.e. it is the time for the Business Requirements gathering. Though every enterprise has its own requirements, the most common business need is the ability to have business capabilities /functions/features/services that can be engaged on-demand being paid for accordingly; it is a sort of a lease of business capabilities.
The major difference between this need and offered infrastructure Clouds is in that computational power and even pre-installed COTS are not enough. Business needs business functionality on-demand, which is associated with the following aspects:
a) business transparency of used resources
b) business flexibility in adopting changes
c) business control and auditing of the resources and operations
d) functional and informational consistency
e) business trust foundation (security).
In short words, Business needs:
1) full control over engaged/leased/rented business capabilities
2) full decoupling from those business capabilities when the engagement/lease is over.
If Technology can provide appropriate technical environment, Business will be able to deploy Business Analysts, Agents, Representatives and Advisors on this environment when needed. It seems that described model fits well with Private Clouds, i.e. the Clouds held in the enterprise in the same way as regular IT organisation. This conclusion is based on the up to date inability of the public Clouds to meet business needs listed above. From another perspective, the Private Clouds is also not 100 per cent right thing because Business cannot decouple itself from the Private Clouds in full after the Clouds use/engagement completes.
Thus, an ideal solution is in adjustable and "leasable/rentable" Clouds that can act as functional Clouds for the business. The illustrative analogous that many people can recognise is a rented convertible car. When you rent the car, you fully control it including adjustable top, seats and mirrors; you know exactly where its engine and tank (no cloudy location-independent things for the renting time); when you return the car to the rent shop and pay for the mileage and petrol, you can forget about this car. Moreover, nothing precludes you from hiring a chauffeur (business personnel) to drive your, i.e. rented, car for you.
There may be a guideline on which Clouds to prefer - private or public - but the decision is only yours in each particular situation. If private Clouds is just an abstraction that you cannot afford yet, there are no choices and you will go with the public Clouds (if needed). However, if you have a choice, you have to balance temporary cost benefit of hiring the public Clouds (instead of your own IT) with the loosing security/trust level, functional and informational controls and, potentially, business flexibility for much longer time than the cost saving benefit can cover for. If your business is heavily tied with Technology, loosing the direct control over Technology in the absence of the listed business aspects, leads to tremendous business risk and you will not be able to blame Technology for it - it can disappear in the Clouds.
Leave a comment