Much of what is being offered on the market in SA today is not "true cloud computing", according to Grant Vine, technical director at Cybervine IT Solutions.
"True cloud services are a lot more user-friendly and cost-effective than remote hosted services, but not everyone is getting true cloud. Much of it amounts to little more than standard remote hosted solutions with the cloud brand slapped on them," Vine asserts.
The defining benefit of the cloud is the flexibility it offers - but many are not receiving this benefit from their cloud services, he explains, being locked into contracts with no scaleability. "When hosting your virtual machines with an infrastructure hosting company, the overall cost in the long term could prove higher than buying the infrastructure yourself," he adds.
True cloud computing requires a change in how we think about software deployment, he argues. "It gives customers the ability to scale up and down as needed, and to pay only for what was actually used. In SA, few hosted service providers are starting to offer month-to-month billing, rather than a 12-month, fixed-term contract." True cloud, according to Vine, should do away with sales and account management staff, as well as the need to get a quotation prior to increasing or decreasing capacity - but "not everyone in SA is getting this".
Companies looking to move to the cloud should conduct a complete evaluation of internal products and services, to gauge exactly what should be run on a public cloud infrastructure. "Companies need to assess if what they are about to buy is actually what they will use. If contracts are necessary, companies should try to isolate to shorter-term contracts - month-to-month being the best currently available. The costs of new technologies are dropping all the time, and committing to 12 months at a set fee could result in unnecessary expenditure," he warns.
"Be wary of the costs of putting data into the cloud vendor's platform, as well as the cost of getting it back out," he adds. "You may find there is a charge to take your VMs and files to leave their environment, so it is important to read contracts carefully."
A further catch is understanding the policies around what the host may do in the event of breach. "You may discover that, in terms of your agreement, the hosting company may shut down access to your servers in the event of a problem. Protection of their environment is more important than protecting the clients that are hosted there, and therefore situations such as this are a means of managing their own overall risk and exposure. This could leave your company offline and unable to function, which could be costly."
In summary, says Vine, a "true" cloud service should be low-cost, self-managed and elastic. "Provisioning additional capacity should be a point-and-click exercise through a browser at best. Basically, if an 'account manager' needs to come and see you to 'spec' your requirements, then it is not 'true' cloud computing.
"Because the cloud is much hyped at the moment, there is always the risk that companies will blindly rush into any service branded as cloud, and move their entire infrastructure without careful consideration," he concludes. "But the 'forklift approach' to putting everything in the cloud could be risky and expensive. So be wary of being swept up in the tornado of hype, throwing caution to the wind, and finding yourself with your head in the clouds and no way back to solid ground."
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