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Bigger businesses lag behind with cloud adoption

EMC executives have said medium-sized businesses have made more progress than their larger cousins in cloud computing.

By Jennifer Scott, 7 Oct 2009 at 08:30

Medium-sized businesses are doing well with their adoption of cloud computing while enterprises are lagging behind, according to an EMC executive.

In an interview with IT PRO, Martin Snellgrove, global competency lead for EMC Consulting, said the private cloud was the way to encourage larger businesses to get on board with cloud computing as a whole.

“Medium businesses have made good progress, however larger organisations are looking for the help to broker the transition," he added.

“It is about scale and the fact they are held back in terms of ownership. Large organisations are pretty complex and each department is only accountable for their own infrastructure. So you transfer 20 to 30 per cent and then hit barriers.”

Mukesh Sharma, director of VMware Alliance in Europe for EMC, agreed with his colleague and believed that the private cloud is what will help fill the gap.

“Different types of organisations have different views, some customers are aggressive with their plans but many aren’t," he said. "I see this private cloud offering we have as a stepping stone.”

He added: “Create a pilot of non-legacy to try it out, then build a business case comparing before and after.”

This approach fits with predictions made by Gartner earlier this week that more investment would be made in the private cloud than public until 2012 as businesses were untrusting of the full public offering.

Phil Dawson, research vice president at Gartner, warned that while private clouds may well be the stepping stone to using cloud computing, “larger organisations will continue to have an IT organisation that manages and deploys IT resources internally. Some of these will be private clouds', but not all.”

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Flying into the clouds

The benefits of cloud computing are indeed compelling, creating a centralised method to access shared data, significantly lowering costs and reducing data centre space, power and cooling. However, organisations must realise that accountability for valuable business data cannot be as conveniently outsourced. Companies could be exposing themselves to a business continuity disaster. In many ways cloud computing resembles the Application Service Provider (ASP) model that was prolific prior to the dot-com crash, and a lot of those providers are no longer around. We must remember that management will always be responsible for protecting company and customer data. It is therefore essential when moving towards cloud computing that businesses consistently ensure the health of the cloud-provided services. This includes gaining complete confidence that the cloud provider is a viable, stable business with assurances and protections, such as comprehensive risk and security defences in place, to safeguard business data. Alongside guarantees from the provider, businesses must also ensure that they have an alternative strategy in place in the case of any disruptions or loss of connectivity to the cloud-based service. This includes awareness of any of the provider’s fallback plans and commitments that may jeapordise valuable information. Businesses also need to bear in mind that any interruptions to cloud computing providers may have to be dealt with on both a short- and long-term basis, depending on the nature of the disturbance. Whilst the benefits of moving to the cloud are evident businesses must be aware of what they are getting into, and be able to mitigate the risks. Yours sincerely, Andrew Heather General Manager, EMEA Tripwire www.tripwire.com

By Ip_olivean9b2a7c on Wednesday Oct 7