The Heavens Open
How cloud computing is growing up
Lufthansa Magazine, Spiegel, Stern: the attention currently enjoyed by cloud computing in the media is comparable to that usually reserved for celebrities. Yet nothing is more urgently needed than a demystification because the value of services presently offered is just barely enough for a “one-hit wonder.” A divided market and debundled business models beyond “fast and cheap” are in the offing so that cloud computing will find broad acceptance in complex IT environments as well.
The power of the imagery is remarkable: the universal metaphor of the cloud, free of technocratic jargon, is inspiring the better popular magazines to elucidate a groundbreaking IT concept to their lifestyle-conscious readers. And while the experts have been struggling for months to come up with generally accepted definitions, sellers are exploiting the hype to market virtually any and every kind of product: cloud and social networks, cloud and brand management, cloud and hyperlocal content aggregation – do you have an IT problem? You will find the solution in the cloud!
Everything that can be said today with any degree of universal acceptance about cloud computing can be expressed in two concise statements. First: cloud computing is not a technology; it is a business model for the provision of IT services. And since greater precision regarding functionality of cloud computing services is not possible, the only hope for at least some clarity is offered by the three segments: infrastructure, platforms, and software. Second: cloud computing services are adequately characterized by billing based on usage and the performance on operating equipment used jointly by all users. So cloud computing is an evolutionary stage of “application service provisioning” and “utility computing”, but with better genetic material thanks to advanced technology. Virtualization, high network bandwidths, and Web applications bursting with functional power are the steroids which enable cloud computing to take the technological hurdles effortlessly.
Is cloud computing nothing more than a lever to lower cost?
Providers have seized upon a simplified description of the nature of cloud computing services – “pay as you go” and “shared resources” – to create a stereotype claim for benefits: cloud computing reduces costs and accelerates the provision of services. There can be no doubt that these characteristics are the embodiment of every IT director’s goals. However, this narrow focus on cost and time advantages is also the greatest weakness. The larger a company and the more complex the application landscape, the lower the priority played by the advantages of “fast and cheap” in the overall picture. The cloud computing services offered today still do not have an answer to many of the challenges facing IT:
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