“The Cloud” is a set of technology that delivers computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network (typically the internet). Clouds can be classified as public, private or hybrid. Tools are being developed as we speak to manage the various offerings, capacity management tools to report actual use and CMP tools to manage the various environments at the service management, access management, and service optimization levels. 

Chances are there are some excellent advantages to using cloud computing for your company today.  It can be used in the development area, the testing area, and even the production environment with some constraints.  The key to making it work is to have some understanding of its benefits and its challenges.   

In order to ensure that you achieve your desired goals/results from the cloud, it is best to work with your infrastructure team or an independent consultant (without ties to Cloud revenue) to help you spell out your requirements and to ensure that you have asked all of the pertinent technical and operational questions of a prospective cloud provider.  Depending on what Cloud Model you select, your company’s infrastructure team may be interacting directly with your cloud provider after the deal is signed.

   
A Few Cloud Advantages:

Cloud computing is Information Technology’s answer to some very limiting aspects of Windows environments of the past.   This new implementation design has created what seems like almost unlimited capacity and has taken advantage of software to make the environments much easier to manage and require less downtime.  Virtualization started decades ago with mainframes, then Unix, then storage and now network servers.  Cloud takes advantages of all these advances.

 

• Cloud technology provides virtualized server farms and storage.  This allows you to receive the advantages of virtualized components that increase availability and decrease cost by letting you have a little part of a large infrastructure environment.  This is clearly advantageous to small and mid-size companies, as well as, very volatile environments within a company, such as development teams that have fluctuating requirements and/or configurations based on their development cycle and test teams that also have fluctuating requirements and/or configurations based on their test schedules.

• Cloud technology is easy to expand and collapse capacity.  Indeed the cloud infrastructure has come a long way in making it easier and quicker to acquire the needed resources and configure new virtual servers with the appropriate amount of storage.  Still proactive, continuous planning and communication on your part and the cloud provider’s part is needed to ensure capacity will be there.

• Cloud access is ubiquitous.  A well-run cloud computing company has a substantial network footprint with many options providing an amazing array of access to your cloud information.   Knowing how you plan to access the environments is essential to select the right provider.  Cell phones are ubiquitous also, unless you are in an area where there is no access to a cell tower, so knowing your network access requirements is essential to having access when and where your need it