Cloud Computing - What Does it Mean to Your Enterprise?

Consumerized services, available to anyone, delivered from ‘the Cloud’, have become widely discussed as Cloud Computing.  While millions of people and thousands of businesses are already using Cloud Computing – whether they know it or not – it is early days with the technologies that are being deployed.  Enterprises need to understand exactly what is meant by ‘Cloud Computing’ as every vendor tries to turn the phrase to their advantage. 

Essentially, Cloud Computing is part of a wave of change that is washing over IT organizations.  Components of the wave include the consumerization of IT, mobility, the rise of much more tech-smart employees and a shift in business models from vertical integration to horizontal, networked and collaborative businesses. 

Backed by the massive scale of consumerized offerings, the Cloud is a source for new services for enterprises at multiple levels including infrastructure, platform, software application, and process.  Surrounding these layers are new orchestration offerings for scaling, security, identity, and management.  These layers form a stack with important consequences.

Going down the stack gives firms the ability to precisely do what they want. However, it is at the expense of much greater attention to detail.  Going up the stack frees management attention, but at the cost of having to abide by decisions made lower in the stack. 

We have been looking at this phenomenon for some time now and ran our 2008 Study Tour on this topic looking at the choices and risks in moving to the Cloud.

Take a look at some of our work in this space via the links attached. We’ll be continuing this journey to help you, our clients, identify and address the issues as this transformational IT technology moves forward. 

In developing your roadmap to the Cloud, keep in mind that for many the future of the horizontal, networked business is collaboration.  And that the future of collaboration is in the Cloud.

Simon Wardley ranked No 10 on TNW’s List of Top 25 Most Influential People Tweeting on Cloud Computing

Read Simon Wardley's article on 15 February 2011 from the Wall Street Journal on Pinning Down the Cloud

Read Simon Wardley's article on 30 July 2010 from IT Business Edge on Maintaining Strategic Control over Cloud Computing

Read Doug Neal's article in June 2010 from Connect World - Europe edition on Cloud computing: Future directions and management implications

Read Doug Neal's article on 15 April 2010 from Corp! Magazine on Future Directions and Management Implications of Cloud Computing