Move your business to the cloud
"If something is a good idea, it's going to
happen. And so, you can fight it, or you can do it." - Jeff
Bezos, Amazon CEO
Migrating your business to the cloud promises a world free of of worry about things that have nothing to do with your core business.
Think of it this way - what if you had to concern yourself with providing the electricity needed to run your business? If there was no outlet to plug your lights and machines into, you would have to go look for a generator, buy it, implement it, hire engineers to keep it running, make sure you have backup, and make plans for any disaster that might befall such a critical component of your business.
Plug into the cloud
It used to be this way, in the days before the electric grid, and being able to produce your own electricity was a huge competitive advantage. But once the grid was in place, it quickly became a major liability. Companies that moved to the grid significantly reduced their costs, and they could focus on their business. In addition, having access to cheap, unlimited electricity meant they could afford to make use of electrical components that before may have been cost prohibitive.
There is a very strong parallel between this and IT. Harvard professor Nicholas Carr has written a book about this called The Big Switch. In the same way that companies moved to the electrical grid, so they will move to the computing grid in the "cloud". Just like plugging your device into an outlet to get electrical power, you point your browser to the appropriate application in the cloud to get the service you need.
Say goodbye to servers
There are enormous advantages to be had. You never have to buy servers again. You never have to worry about backups and disaster recovery. You never need to hire networking specialists to keep your infrastructure running. You never have to patch and upgrade your hardware or software.
Say hello to a new world of powerful applications
But it's even more than that. Once you are plugged into the cloud, you have access to thousands of new applications that can help your business, many of them free or low cost. Anyone anywhere in the world, at any time - employees, partners, clients - needs only a browser to access your organizations information. No more downloads, installs, updates.
And unlike the costly and complex way in which integration among disparate systems takes place now, applications in the cloud are standards based and much more open than traditional applications. This paves the way for building powerful composite solutions that pull data and use functionality from multiple applications.
Start building long tail applications
Cloud-based development and deployment platforms also make feasible many software solutions that were previously too costly to build. Eliminating the need for infrastructure (both hardware and software) means the start up, deployment and support costs for an application are significantly reduced. Every organization has a long tail of applications that rarely get built because of this overhead. Cloud computing will change this.
Is there a downside?
So you're thinking that all this sounds grand, but there has to be a downside. Am I going to let my secret data be stored on some distant server somewhere where I have no control? This has got to be dangerous. What if my competitors get hold of it or it gets lost?
The truth is that you trust your money to outside institutions every single day. You would never think of hiding your money under your mattress. Why would you do that with your data? Besides, there is a much better chance that Joe the network guy is going to steal, lose, or otherwise accidentally distribute your data outside your organization than Amazon or Google.
Get started now!
It's time to start thinking about moving to the cloud. Your costs will go down and your business will be more efficient. And cloud computing is inevitable - don't be roadkill in the race to take advantage of it....
Migrating your business to the cloud promises a world free of of worry about things that have nothing to do with your core business.
Think of it this way - what if you had to concern yourself with providing the electricity needed to run your business? If there was no outlet to plug your lights and machines into, you would have to go look for a generator, buy it, implement it, hire engineers to keep it running, make sure you have backup, and make plans for any disaster that might befall such a critical component of your business.
Plug into the cloud
It used to be this way, in the days before the electric grid, and being able to produce your own electricity was a huge competitive advantage. But once the grid was in place, it quickly became a major liability. Companies that moved to the grid significantly reduced their costs, and they could focus on their business. In addition, having access to cheap, unlimited electricity meant they could afford to make use of electrical components that before may have been cost prohibitive.
There is a very strong parallel between this and IT. Harvard professor Nicholas Carr has written a book about this called The Big Switch. In the same way that companies moved to the electrical grid, so they will move to the computing grid in the "cloud". Just like plugging your device into an outlet to get electrical power, you point your browser to the appropriate application in the cloud to get the service you need.
Say goodbye to servers
There are enormous advantages to be had. You never have to buy servers again. You never have to worry about backups and disaster recovery. You never need to hire networking specialists to keep your infrastructure running. You never have to patch and upgrade your hardware or software.
Say hello to a new world of powerful applications
But it's even more than that. Once you are plugged into the cloud, you have access to thousands of new applications that can help your business, many of them free or low cost. Anyone anywhere in the world, at any time - employees, partners, clients - needs only a browser to access your organizations information. No more downloads, installs, updates.
And unlike the costly and complex way in which integration among disparate systems takes place now, applications in the cloud are standards based and much more open than traditional applications. This paves the way for building powerful composite solutions that pull data and use functionality from multiple applications.
Start building long tail applications
Cloud-based development and deployment platforms also make feasible many software solutions that were previously too costly to build. Eliminating the need for infrastructure (both hardware and software) means the start up, deployment and support costs for an application are significantly reduced. Every organization has a long tail of applications that rarely get built because of this overhead. Cloud computing will change this.Is there a downside?
So you're thinking that all this sounds grand, but there has to be a downside. Am I going to let my secret data be stored on some distant server somewhere where I have no control? This has got to be dangerous. What if my competitors get hold of it or it gets lost?
The truth is that you trust your money to outside institutions every single day. You would never think of hiding your money under your mattress. Why would you do that with your data? Besides, there is a much better chance that Joe the network guy is going to steal, lose, or otherwise accidentally distribute your data outside your organization than Amazon or Google.
Get started now!
It's time to start thinking about moving to the cloud. Your costs will go down and your business will be more efficient. And cloud computing is inevitable - don't be roadkill in the race to take advantage of it....