As the Cloud View Matures, Reality Sets In

I originally authored this article for Real Deal Technologies.  The original posting appears here.

The latest and greatest thing is never as clean and clear cut as you’d like it to be.  There’s usually a catch, right?  Right.  In the case of cloud computing, it’s so far been big concerns over data security and the lack of any standardization.  News from a recent survey on cloud computing as reported by Art Wittman for Informationweek paints a new picture of concern as reality begins to set in for CIOs everywhere.

Now the realization among many CIOs is that what is an up front major savings realized when moving to the cloud can easily mean unwanted expenditures in the out years as it pertains to the applications being moved to the cloud.  Indeed, what looks like a good deal in years one of two of moving to the cloud won’t look good in years four and five.  Unless the application itself changes, the total cost of moving an application to a service provider will usually increase the overall cost of the application over the long run.

Another consideration for CIOs is that the cloud provider may have poorer security or reliability than your own organization thus turning a cost savings into a potential risk-taking nightmare.  After all, this is your critical apps and data we’re talking about.  Beyond all this, there are integration, configuration, and customization costs to consider.

CIOs have matured in their thinking toward cloud computing.  While cost savings was once sited as the top reason for considering moving to the cloud, that has been replaced at the top by the ability to roll out business technology quickly to the masses.  It is a new, mature and sobering view of cloud computing and it should be viewed as good news as CIOs everywhere are forgoing the pie-in-the-sky view of cloud computing and are thinking forward in reality mode.