Cloud Computing - PIE in the sky

"Pie in the sky" is an American idiom coined by Swedish-born migrant Joe Hill in 1911. It simply means something good that is unlikely to happen or a way of referring to any prospect of future happiness which is unlikely ever to be realized.

Cloud Computing, inspite of all the attention and focus in the IT world, continues to have its skeptics.

 

As you begin to introduce Cloud Computing to your organization or your Clients you take logical steps to educate them, answer their questions on benefits, viability and sustainability. You also start something small as a proof of value to gain support. A host of factors including current economic conditions, an appetite for investment, a business case to demonstrate value and most importantly your ability to rapidly build awareness with your audience will drive the adoption of Cloud Computing.


To achieve this I would focus on three key areas : 
Performance. Integration. Economics.  (P-I-E)


Performance: 
Cloud computing models will drive performance for your service level agreements. Big data platforms such as Hadoop and MapReduce can significantly improve performance characteristics as we have seen in the implementation of leading retail, information aggregation and social media sites. Measuring real world Cloud performance is now beyond philosophical debates. There are tools out there to measure performance of each component of your Cloud solution. By validating their individual contribution you can identify the weak links for engineering in your performance model.

Integration:
If you look at the continuum of information management from information acquisition to information delivery and the intermediate translation, integration and packaging there are components that can be owned and managed by appropriate Cloud components. At some point data in these heterogeneous components has to be integrated with data from the organization that is not in the Cloud.  Though integration-as-service providers address Cloud to Cloud integration, a good amount of planning is required from bringing information blocks together with the perspective of security, governance, ownership and even performance.

Economics: 
There is significant economies of scale (labor, electricity, purchasing power with hardware vendors etc) with Cloud Computing. Housing thousands of servers in large data center reduces total cost of ownership (TCO) per server. Multi-tenant occupancy works in favor of distributing and hence reducing individual owner costs. Efficient utilization of resources for varying loads and spikes keeps a lid on demand side costs. Keep in mind, the economics is more than just reduction/elimination of capital expenditure or the costs to install/configure/buy infrastructure and services. It is also about the cost of security (or lapse there of), control, compliance, auditing and the cost of transparency (or lack there of). 

If you are a Cloud Computing practitioner, smile when you hear "oh this cloud computing is such a pie in the sky". Do not be deterred by the skepticism. The motor car, radio, electricity, television, CD, computer, cell phone .. the list is long ... they all had skeptics.

Take time to educate your organization and your Clients on the PIE with factual data. Bring awareness around technical complexities and adoption hurdles. Empower yourself and give the phrase "pie in the sky" a new and positive connotation. 

Now go and be a Rain Maker !