With companies like IBM and Dell and Sun offering cloud computing solutions to compete with Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud in different flavors, the question can be asked: is it time to move your IT infrastructure out of your building and into the hands of a managed hosting environment? And if so, what goes and what stays?
Nitesh Dhanjani takes some this article, by Bill Snyder points out that culture might be the largest hurdle to overcome for most businesses.
Before taking the plunge, ask yourself a few questions:
- Do you have enough bandwidth to make use of remote applications feel seamless?
- Is your security platform and firewall configuration tuned to accommodate moving applications offsite?
- What happens when the network goes down? How do you work offline?
- Who is providing the cloud application and what does their infrastructure look like?
- Does the offsite cost save you money by allowing you to reduce your IT staff, or is this a wash?
Considering a move to cloud computing isn't a wrong decision, and the news in recent months by players like Amazon, IBM, Dell, and Sun signals that there's something to the space overall. Is your company ready for a move to cloud computing? Have you made the shift? I'd be interested in hearing your experiences with it.
Send mail to [email protected] if you want to talk more about cloud computing or share your ideas.