The BBC wrote a great article recently about how cloud computing is going mainstream in business. There were some good examples of big companies such as Rentokil Initial, Aviva and Universal Music who have moved from internal corporate email, content management, business intelligence and e-commerce systems to cloud providers such as Google and Microsoft.
It’s certainly a hot topic and there’s a definite, growing trend towards cloud computing in businesses big and small. It’s no longer confined to ultra-technical companies or niche products; mainstream CIOs are seriously considering cloud-based solutions as completely viable alternatives to the traditional “build it and host it yourself” IT model. Let’s explore why and look specifically at some of the problems it solves.
Traditional problems
Traditionally, IT departments have hosted, managed and, in a lot of cases, developed their own internal solutions for corporate systems such as email, CRM, intranets, extranets and so on. In theory this approach has some advantages such as control, security and customisation but in reality, it is fraught with difficulty and suffers from many potential constraints.
Expensive to build and maintain
Not only do you need to invest heavily up front with a large project and development team, servers, infrastructure and other capital expenditure, you also have to sustain this throughout the lifecycle of the application with support, maintenance, new developments, enhancements and so on. This can be incredibly expensive and frequently leads to multi-million pound projects.
Competition for internal resources
Most IT departments simply don’t have the resources or budgets to be able to undertake this level of development, support and maintenance across the organisation’s many applications and systems. This ends up in a competition for internal resources and the all-too-often heard “We can’t take on any new projects for 2 years” response from the IT department.
Legacy applications
The net effect is that internal systems often suffer from a lack of continued development and investment after the initial outlay and end up, 5 or 10 years down the line, as legacy applications that are so out of date, they are no longer worth investing in or using. I’m sure anyone sitting inside a corporate environment can point to several “dead” or “dying” applications that haven’t been touched in years.
Why the cloud makes sense
Part of the reason cloud computing is starting to go mainstream is because it solves most of these problems and businesses are starting to realise it is a truly viable alternative to the traditional IT model. It allows them to achieve much more on ever-diminishing IT budgets.
No capital expenditure
First and foremost, cloud computing doesn’t require any initial capital outlay. You don’t need to buy servers, operating systems or worry about infrastructure issues such as disaster recovery or backup. Your cloud provider will supply all of that for you (depending on the exact nature of the solution you’re considering).
No development resource
No more fights with other internal departments about who’s project is more important, you don’t need to worry about development teams or competition for internal resources with a cloud-based solution. All you need to worry about is how you’re going to use it to drive business value.
Value for money
Fundamentally, cloud vendors work on the basis of economies of scale. They can offer significantly cheaper pricing, relative to internal systems, because they share their technology, software, development and infrastructure costs across many clients. They are not reinventing the wheel each time so their products become a utility or service to their clients which allows them to be extremely efficient and deliver amazing value for money. This basically means you don’t need to do anything. The cloud vendor looks after the entire solution for you including infrastructure, hosting, security and disaster recovery
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Regular upgrades and development
Cloud providers are focussed on their products and on keeping them competitive, so they continually develop and enhance their applications, adding new features on a regular basis. This means the solution will continue to evolve and bypass the traditional problem of obsolescence caused by lack of development and investment. Similarly, their products’ success is linked to the success of their clients in using it, so they have a vested interest in making sure the products are as good as they can be.
Innovation and sophistication
I think it’s fair to say that your average cloud-based solution is going to be a fair bit more innovative and sophisticated than the typical internally developed solution. Can you imagine Gmail ever having been developed by an internal corporate team? This is because cloud providers do not have the same technological or budgetary constraints placed on them, so they can freely innovate.
Rapid deployment and scalability
A cloud-based solution can be deployed almost instantaneously off-the-shelf, there is no 18 month gestation period while you wait for someone to build it for you. Similarly, because you’re using an inherently flexible and adaptable infrastructure, if you want to suddenly scale your users or global coverage, it’s not going to be a problem. Your cloud provider will be able to do this quickly and easily.
Conclusion
So the cloud is an exciting place to be, with cost-effective, innovative platforms that can be rolled out anywhere in the world at the drop of a hat. It really is time your organisation started thinking about which business applications and services can be better served by cloud-based solutions.
