Cloud confusion
It’s fair to say the IT industry has well and truly jumped on the cloud computing bandwaggon. Given the truly awful global economic conditions, which has seen IT spend stay relatively flat for the last few years, this golden nugget could not have come at a better time.
Good times are back…at least if businesses buy the into the pitch that cloud computing can well and truly help them to save money on their IT costs.
Whilst cloud computing can perhaps be seen as simply old school bureau services, this time around the services are based on internet standards, virtualisation and web services.
Computer systems can indeed be run more efficiently by an external provider rather than in-house, that’s why companies outsource their IT or use hosting services.
The cloud is an extension of this concept, packaged for the mass market. A manager can buy Salesforce’s monthly subscription using a credit card. There’s no prolonged tender and procurement process.
This all makes sense. But there appears to be a lot of confusion surrounding the cloud, particularly the concept of a private cloud. It is no wonder therefore that businesses cannot understand the nuances of cloud computing. Simple definitions, built on existing concepts is the approach we would take.
The private cloud, in its most empirical form, is an approach to offer IT on a per use basis to the business, rather like a utility. The business does not need to understand how this is achieved technically with virtualised, multi-tenanted architectures et al. All it needs to know is that the IT service can be provided as a subscription with guaranteed service levels cost effectively.
maillotjaunepr
When planning out your technology, take a look at Microsoft. One benefit is that you can choose if you want to put all services in the Cloud or run a hybrid environment with both public and private Cloud spaces. This like will give you more details: http://smb.ms/OutreachcyOXfC
Regards,
Jodi E.
Microsoft SMB Outreach Team
msftoft@microsoft.com