Is Now a Good Time to Move to the Cloud?
The scalability needed to face the upturn and imminent refresh cycles, make now the right time to go cloud.
Vinod Vyas
Lavasa, VP-IS
I wouldn't go cloud yet because of the lack of SLA benchmarks and industry standards
V. Srinivas
Nagarjuna Fertilizers, CIO
I don’t see cloud computing as a new disruptive technology because concepts like virtualization and pay-per-use models have been around for quite some time. I took the decision to move to the cloud way back in early 2010, when everyone was busy contemplating the technology’s benefits. I evaluated all the aspects of the cloud—from security to pricing models—that are perceived to be vague. And today, moving to the cloud has been highly beneficial to Lavasa.
The cloud will provide our business the ability to scale up at a pace that others wouldn’t be able to match. Also, it helps cut costs. For example, if I just consider our e-mail and hosting project on the cloud, we have managed to attain 50 percent cost savings. Just imagine the difference it would make on a large scale.
If you look at the market today, it is widely accepted that the cloud is going to be big in the days to come. Organizations that have adopted virtualization certainly should consider moving to the cloud. The impetus is backed by two big reasons. One, the global recession pushed businesses towards an almost two-year long spell of cost cutting, freezing expansion plans and deferring new projects. Now, since most economies finally seem to be recuperating from the downturn, organizations are aggressively pushing growth agendas.
For a CIO, that means scaling up systems and infrastructure quickly. Just setting up an e-mail system might take around two to three weeks depending on how fast servers and hardware is delivered and the amount of resources one can push into software installation and testing. With the cloud, it would take just two hours to go live. That is the kind of speed and scalability businesses are looking for today.
Also, right now, we are at the refresh cycle period and a lot of CIOs are looking at upgrading or renewing contracts. It’s just the right time to move to the cloud. And if you aren’t satisfied with the cloud, it’s always easy to return to your original upgrade plan.
A decision to move to the cloud also gives organizations an early-mover advantage. This gives them an opportunity to fuel further growth, learn about the cloud, and iterate the solution in the market. Also, I believe that the cloud solution providers are trying to establish their credibility and competency and it’s the right time to cash in on it. This also prevents vendor lock-in and long term contract compulsions. Therefore, CIOs will be in a better position to dictate terms and conditions related to pricing and security. I bargained for an SLA that levies huge penalty on my cloud service provider if they breach any security parameter set by me.
So, considering these points, and the benefits that the cloud has brought to our organization, I think this is the right time to move to the cloud.
At present, I am not working on a cloud model for the simple reason that there is neither any business requirement nor a pressing need for me to push for a technology which is still largely considered to be in its hype phase. Just like virtualization, cloud computing has been a buzzword for quite some time now. And despite that, there is still a lot of ambiguity around the cloud. That, in itself, is a concern.
I don’t agree that moving to the cloud right now will bring any early mover advantage. While framing the SLAs and terms and conditions, a CIO would have to be doubly careful as there are no standard benchmarks to refer to. Also, technology standards on the cloud, by definition, are restrictive and vendors would avoid them because they might not benefit from standardization at this stage of market development.
In my view, cloud computing is a very selective technology that would work for selective companies for selective purposes. It might be great for some small and medium businesses that find it hard to invest in infrastructure and are not very sensitive about data. But in its current avatar, it just doesn’t fit the larger organizations. A lack of industry standards makes it prudent to hold on till the market has fully matured.
If I look at the number of unanswered questions around the cloud, then certainly there are concerns about whether the time is ripe for organizations to move to the cloud. Like many of my peers, I am still not very clear about the cloud’s security and confidentiality issues. And recent incidents have compounded this fear. Take Wikileaks for example. The website was unavailable when service providers decided to discontinue services. Another example was when, recently, Hotmail users lost their accounts and other personal information.
Apart from security, there are other apprehensions with the cloud. Sure, one may be tempted to host some non-core business applications and data on the cloud, but what happens in case a service provider suddenly folds up? Are there any legal steps one can take when a cloud provider decides to make changes to the infrastructure without telling the company? In such a scenario, how does one retrieve data? Are businesses willing to take such risks? No matter how non-core these apps are, data is still a company’s asset.
To me, the pricing model does not make any difference at all. If my data and information is not secure, then I certainly have bigger and more compelling issues to worry about than saving costs.
Also, for organizations that are seriously looking at rural penetration, bandwidth is an issue. Even with the advent of 3G, speed can be a concern and it might take some time before the cloud sees widespread adoption.
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