Companies that fail to effectively take advantage of cloud computing today, will be out of business in five years.
This is according to Intel SA enterprise director Gregory Cline, who spoke at last week's Intel Enterprise Sales and Solutions event, in Sandton. He said IT operating costs will be heavily affected by the cloud model a company chooses to implement in the next five years.
His advice to companies thinking of joining the cloud revolution is to first ask the tough questions, such as: What do you want to accomplish with moving to the cloud? And, how can you keep management happy doing it?
Cline said organisations need a clear business strategy in a cloud-computing project, as cloud computing needs to prove its value in order to support business growth.
“Unless we do something about manageability, IT will spend $2 trillion on deployment and operations through 2015, unless smarter infrastructure radically simplifies management of virtualised environments, according to Bain and Company.”
Cline advises that companies spend wisely when it comes to designing new IT architecture. “The old concept of 'out with the old and in with the new' has never rung more true. To dovetail on existing IT infrastructure, at the end of the day, does more harm than good.”
Cline said the only way to effectively implement cloud technology, and save money, is to adopt a top-down, bottom-up approach to reduce capital expenditure, and ensure consistency from a company perspective.
According to Forrester, 69% of surveyed respondents say security is the number one concern in moving their data to the cloud.
Research firm Gartner found that 55% of surveyed companies choose to move their data into the cloud because they want agility and speed in order to respond quickly to customer needs, and to roll out products quickly to the market.
According to the firm, by 2015, 41% of large organisations globally will be in the private cloud, and 36% in the hybrid cloud, while 24% will be highly virtualised.
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