Venyu Blog

Disruptive technologies rarely result in complacency. Still, if you’re on the sidelines when it comes to cloud computing, you may be missing out on a technology that could provide your organization with immediate as well as long-term benefit.

In this summary of a Forrester Research “Tech Radar” report on ZDNet, James Staten suggests that the upswell of cloud championed by your internal users and external influencers is well-founded, in spite of counter arguments from C-suite executives who contend such capabilities can be extracted from their own internal data centers.

In Forrester’s opinion (and by the way one I fervently share), cloud computing services are not a threat to enterprise infrastructure and operations (I&O) professionals, but another tool in your arsenal for delivering technology advantage to your company. This competitive advantage, however, is significantly marginalized when I&O professionals, per Forrester, dismiss true cloud services, in spite of clouds maturing at a rapid rate.

The Creation (the upper case “C” in this case is deliberate), or initial disruptive phase of cloud computing services has long receded into the backdrop of IT history. Today’s clouds have made significant strides in their stability, transparency and feature sets, delivering three key variables consistent with the cloud’s path from creation to maturation. These include:

Technology maturity. Has a technology reached a point of sustained legitimacy. Are enough customers using it and are the base capabilities well enough understood and has the business model proven itself.

Expected return on investment. We look at the maturity of a technology and the presence of best practices around its use that validate the model and provide clear cost differences from traditional alternatives. Technologies in the Creation phase tend to have a negative ROI as companies who use them are blazing new trails in using the technology and should expect to spend more in learning how to use the technology. You only want to invest in technologies in the Creation phase if you believe they deliver strategic or differentiating value.

Relevance across all enterprise types. How widely can the value of this technology be applied. Does the technology provide a niche or incremental value or does it dramatically improve the efficiency or value versus similar technologies across a wide swath of use cases and market segments.

Just two short years ago, in 2009, per Forrester, a majority of cloud computing services sat in the Creation phase making them risky bets for I&O investments. However, now that we’re on the verge of 2012, most have proven their staying power, delivering outsized gains and financial advantages.

Indeed, as Staten points out, dismissing cloud computing services as immature and hoping you can evolve the status quo, business-as-usual brigade of services to deliver commensurate value is missing the point, especially when your company’s time-to-value may be at stake.

Along these lines Forrester recommends taking some first steps towards accepting the cloud:

1. Learn how your company is already using cloud computing. Not so you can stop it or take it over, but so you can learn the value and how I*O can contribute and assist. Engage the empowered developers and business leaders who you know are driving this adoption.
2. Get your hands dirty. If you aren’t deploying services to the cloud and analyzing what they do to protect workloads, you can’t begin to advise your company on where they fit best – and where they don’t. Pontificating about this without experience will quickly lead to a loss of your credibility.
3. Incorporate the cloud into your portfolio. With experience and exposure to them you will learn where cloud services add value and where they don’t. This knowledge can help you guide your company through cloud use best practices, define and clarify the role I&O plays in the use of cloud services and help you realize true agility and cost savings that may only be hoped for in perpetuating the status quo.

The take-away on all this? Reluctance to embrace the future, particularly when its path is already so well-defined, may ultimately limit both the forward-march progress of your developers and, perhaps even more importantly, your overall business momentum. Instead, use cloud computing to transform the agility of your IT environment.