Why the cloud conflicts with your IT support team's interests

Heard of cloud computing? It's changing the landscape of IT management, deployment and costing in huge ways. It is enabling business to scale computing power instantly, pay for only what they use, and it allows developers to write software code on top of new kinds of technologies that don't even require interaction with the underlying operating systems.

Traditional IT experts will often use every excuse possible to avoid relinquishing control of the physical computing infrastructure. Amazon's Andy Jassy pointed out some great reasons why this happens, today during the opening Keynote of Amazon's Re:Invent convention.

I would like to point out that I am a traditional IT guy. I build systems, and implement infrastructure. I am also innovative and have enough foresight to realize that my breed is going to die off very soon.

I smiled and shook my head in agreement as Andy pointed out the current trendy argument against moving to the public cloud - that is, that if you have already invested in your own datacenter, or whatever, and you want to retain control of your stuff, then you should purchase a private cloud.

Here's why this is often not a good idea:

Private clouds do not scale. They claim to scale, but you can only ADD capacity, you cannot REDUCE capacity. In the public cloud, you can reduce capacity as your server workloads decrease, and you can add capacity as your applications need it. Pay for what you use, versus making capitol investments in what you might need.

Private clouds do not add capacity instantly. You purchase a fixed system, and if you hit your ceiling, you must buy more hardware. Time to deployment takes an average of 6 weeks per server for private clouds. Public clouds deploy your capacity, whether one, or a thousand servers, in seconds, with no upfront capitol cost.

Private clouds are not cost effective. You must still run your own datacenter, and purchase physical hardware, manage power, internet, data pipe redundancy or whatever you need to run your system.

Private clouds are complex to manage, expensive to maintain, and often do not solve the problems that people want to move into cloud computing to solve.

The other side of the argument came down to the system integrator's business models.

I'll say that I am a system integrator. I understand the following argument very well, and I know for certain that there is very little that my peers can do to avoid being destroyed by the cloud unless they fully embrace it, which may or may not be possible, depending on their business model.

The argument comes down to "product margin", and how your business model is affected by the margins of the products which are sold by that business.

I can say that servers are a fairly high margin item. Interestingly, it is one of the few computing hardware items which has high margin. Businesses who's model involves selling servers expect to make a handsome profit off each unit sold. Not so in the cloud. Andy Jassy pointed out, correctly, and with great industry examples, that businesses who's models involve high margin hardware, like servers, are unable to adapt to the low margin, high volume world of cloud computing. Their business models just aren't easily adaptable to the new world of cloud computing... unless your talking about private clouds. This is what powers their desire to research and sell you private cloud platforms.

So, it's true that your IT person, if they are a traditional IT company like most are, willl want to push you a private cloud solution. They will make a wide range of seemingly compelling arguments for the same. If they pushed the public cloud, their business would suffer in many cases, and they are unable to adapt because we are talking about a significant change in the way you operate and handle expenses, and growth.

Now, with all that said, there are legitimate uses for private cloud solutions. There are a handful of decent reasons for some companies to even avoid the public cloud. Those reasons are dwindling by the month however as the industry innovates new ways to create new implementation scenarios. Currently, all but the most highly regulated companies should be looking closely at public cloud solutions for at least part, if not all, of their systems.

The bottom line is this: If your IT person tries to sell you a private cloud, you should look at the reasons why they are selling you that. You should be suspicious, and do your research. You should get a second opinion from a company that specializes in public cloud infrastructure integration. Those companies, such as Node LLC, will typically be partnered with multiple public cloud providers, and should have a portfolio of customers who they have taken into the cloud.

Remember, if your IT group is not trying to implement at least some of your solutions on public cloud based systems, they are likely making their recommendations based on their own pocket books health, and less so on your business needs.

I am Brandon from Node. I am a system integrator with 20 years of industry experience building networks and computing platforms for small businesses. I can help you determine if a private cloud is viable for your business, and help you deploy either private or public cloud solutions, or traditional systems if desired or needed.I can also help you build hybrid cloud platforms, that work at the public and private layers.

Visit http://www.nodetx.com and contact me today to learn how Node can help you grow your business, inside, or outside, of the cloud.