How often have we heard that 'the cloud changes everything', and that it's the fix for

all your IT problems? In reality, that may or may not be true: it all depends on your starting point and on your expectations and requirements Why cloud? The essence of cloud computing is that it allows you to concentrate on the processes that ma!e the business money rather than on IT, and that it should allow you to be more agile and flexible, as cloud services can be switched on and off, or scaled up and down as required This in turn can help to give an organisation a competitive edge via an ability to respond to changing demands more quic!ly "o a !ey attribute of cloud is that it is as much a business as a technology change, maybe even more the former than the latter Security as a barrier #uch has been said about the barriers to cloud computing "ecurity and trust are at the top of many people's lists, for understandable reasons #ost companies !eep the ability control their information technology and processes in$house %ut$sourcing some or all of that to a cloud provider is inherently more ris!y so that ris! has to be worth the trade$off &ata in transit $ such as that between you and your cloud provider $ are always at ris! but technology such as encryption can mitigate that ris! #ore of a problem is the ability to access that data when problems, such as a networ! failure, occur 's with any business process, it is !ey to do due diligence and to remove such single points of failure where economically practical People issues "o security is one barrier but (ust as important are the people issues 's cloud providers learn what customers want and enterprises understand more about what advantages they can gain from cloud computing, the interfaces between the two will improve, and trust can grow "electing the right cloud providers will be !ey %ne cloud provider says that it can ta!e up to six months of discussions before he and a potential customer wor! through the issues and arrive at a point where the expectations of both entities are aligned This requires as much a matching of cultures as a tic!ing off of technology features, allowing both parties to feel at ease wor!ing together The other people issue concerns internal teams )ecent discussions with cloud customers at an analyst conference unearthed an interesting trend "ecurity was starting to slip down the list of top concerns about cloud computing, to be replaced by internal resistance fuelled by fears for (obs *hat this means is that there will be members of IT staff who are unclear what a move towards cloud computing means for their careers, and perhaps worries too that it may become a way of reducing staff numbers "taff should be reassured that staff time freed up by cloud computing can be

deployed elsewhere, such as improving service levels or to helping manage the relationship with the cloud provider "uch cloud provider bro!ering will be a !ey s!ill, especially as the number of those relationships grows+ few companies will rely on a single provider as few cloud providers will be in a position to deliver everything you might need IT staff may also of course elect to wor! for the cloud provider, who will need people who understand the particular requirements of your organisation Open cloud 's mar!ets shift, you will at some point need to move some or all of your data to another provider 't this point, openness is critical There are moves within the cloud computing industry to improve interoperability and openness, and close attention should be paid to these In particular, ensure that your data remains portable 's stated at the outset, cloud computing involves a shift in business processes, so the provider needs to fit in with your goals and policies This includes the ability to meter and monitor performance, to provide customised billing and chargebac!, and to comply with data governance legislation that applies to your industry sector And finally... 'bove all, cloud computing is not a universal panacea ,ou need to understand why the move ma!es sense for your organisation and, because cloud computing is a fundamental shift in the way that business processes wor!, those processes need to be fully understood before the move occurs This is probably one of the most difficult items on the to$do list of managers before they throw the switch that starts the data flowing to a new cloud provider's infrastructure #ane! &ubash