Cloud Computing is the latest trend in IT development, but it’s still early days and therefore switching to this approach may not be as easy as it sounds.
By Robin Whitlock
Cloud Computing is the current hot topic in the IT world and looks set to revolutionise the sector by providing IT services via the internet rather than through the media of costly on premise equipment or software licence fees. If you’re slightly confused about how exactly this will work out you won’t be alone, since there appears to be quite a bit of controversy out there as to what Cloud Computing is and what it entails. The most commonly accepted definition thus far seems to be that provided by the Gartner website. Essentially, this defines it as “a style of computing in which massively scalable IT-related capabilities are provided "as a service" using Internet technologies to multiple external customers”.
The basic idea is that in the future IT capabilities will be delivered to the end user as a service, neatly encapsulated in acronyms such as ‘SaaS’ – Software as a Service, ‘PaaS’ – Platform as a service and ‘IaaS’ – Infrastructure as a service, all of which will be delivered via the internet.
According to Lucy Read, writing on the Ask The Experts technical social media forum, Cloud Computing could therefore mean accessing software through five particular methods, ‘On-demand Self Service’, Broad Network Access, Resource pooling, Rapid elasticity and Measured service, yet this is still confusing so perhaps the best understanding of it, according to general consensus, is as a ‘virtual computing environment’. Michael Knuckey of Eurocloud UK comments that it will essentially work by enabling users to ‘access applications through their web browser’ typically paying a monthly subscription and thereby eliminating the requirement for costly on-site equipment. Rick Enos of www.storagetechnicians.com further explains PaaS as a facility whereby companies can access IT ‘building blocks’ available on the net in order to develop their own particular applications and SaaS as templated business applications that can be adapted according to individual needs.
This has certain advantages, as Rick Enos explains on Ask The Experts:
“The traditional data centre or IT department is becoming too costly to maintain, as the majority of expenditure now is for human resources, not hardware or software. Traditional competitive advantage that had been associated with corporate IT and carried the ROI has been eroded as virtually every company in the world use the same commodity hardware and software. Furthermore, with the improvement of internet security and encryption technologies, more companies will be looking to reduce their IT overhead wherever possible and turn to cloud and internet based utility computing services. Furthermore, a drive towards Green computing with reduced energy costs has provided impetus for businesses and government bodies to explore the potential benefits of deploying cloud computing.”
It seems therefore that Cloud Computing will enable services to be delivered more along the interactive lines of digital tv, ISP’s and telephony. There are some possible dark sides to the new approach however, some worry that as a result, corporations will be able to ‘lock’ customers into particular contracts with the use of encryption and passwords and so forth, while environmentalists fear that masses of used data will have to be stored in ever growing data centres thereby increasing, not reducing, the IT sector’s burden of greenhouse gas emissions. This is a particular fear with regards to social media users such as Facebook members who may choose to temporarily deactivate their accounts but don’t wish their data to be disposed of.
There are important budgetary considerations as well. According to an article by Bill Goodwin on the ComputerWeekly.com website, Senior Analyst Laurent Lachal of Ovum Ltd is fearful of the financial outlay companies will have to incur in order to take advantage of Cloud Computing. “The integration and organisation requires a lot of effort” he says "You have got to think about integration at all levels, governance, management, process and data integration."
So it appears that while Cloud may have certain benefits in the long term at present it is still in its infancy and therefore a decision to switch to Cloud providers may not be a choice to be taken lightly.
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