Laurianne McLaughlin, editor in chief of US publication Information Week, highlighted this month the issue of journalists writing headlines about moving to the cloud. McLaughlin insisted that you do not move to the cloud because the cloud is not a place in computing terms, ‘it is an operational model (with many variations) that you adopt—and then continue to adapt.’
Her point of view is exactly right and McLaughlin supported this idea with a fitting analogy that ‘you don’t get to simply load your old enterprise IT problems on a truck and arrive at a new place.’ The operations and staff are changed to accommodate the cloud model in order to refurbish the business environment. After the transition, the business should continue to work on developing a very current cloud model.
In considering her analogy, McLaughlin vowed a new change to the reporting style on cloud-related stories on Information Week. She decided that they would never again refer to the idea of ‘moving’ to the cloud. Instead, reporting would focus on observing how the cloud evolves as a process and what makes it successful for its users.
McLaughlin’s idea makes excellent sense about how Backup Technology works with the cloud. Many new clients are adopting cloud backup with us for the first time, and we either assist them with its implementation, or implement it on their behalf. Some new clients had already adopted cloud backup and have approached Backup Technology to develop a more reliable and robust solution. Other clients have preferred to outsource their cloud backup to us entirely.
This raises a key observation. Adopting the cloud is bespoke process with tailored results depending on the organisation and so, a successful process will look different for every organisation. McLaughlin recommends that businesses should consider very practical points, such as what is currently in action for legacy applications. Management should thereafter, move onto more visionary points such as: What kind of IT environment do you want? Does the cloud model mean that the business should reduce the amount of hardware used? Shorten IT delivery times? Stick only with those trusted vendors who speak SaaS?
But for those enterprises at the forefront of cloud processes, according to McLaughlin, the key question is now what stays private and what can be public, and when.
Source: http://www.informationweek.com/news/cloud-computing/infrastructure/231902670
