I heard for years about the cloud, and coming from a mainframe background, cloud really did not seem like anything new. At most, it seemed like a return to the things we used to do. Needed more processing on demand —ok we allocated more processor power to your jobs. What’s the big deal?
Looking back at the history of where we started on the mainframe, we had dumb terminals talking to the mainframe. Then, we started beefing up the terminals and transferring more of the processing to the terminal. Finally we had very powerful terminals handling most of the processing. Then, we started working back the other way with powerful servers and using a browser. Then, finally moving these servers to the cloud.
For the past several years, I thought “What’s the big deal?”. Seriously is this any different? Does this get us anything that we did not have before? Really what’s the benefit?
Then, it hit me. The big deal is that you are in control of your cloud. You are not having to go through a lot of overhead and requests in your organization and the IT organization to get more MIPS for your program. Expecting heavier traffic? Log on to your cloud portal and create and start a few more images, and add them into your project. No more going through getting additional hardware, doing installations, and testing. It’s just simple.
The old mantra — Keep It Simple Stupid — applies in IT and also the real world. Cloud keeps it simple, reduces the single points of failure, and makes it easier. The tools are better, the infrastructure is better…that’s the big deal with the cloud. It lets your lines of business focus on the business.
In the past, IT was sometimes as the blocker, Shadow IT started running rampant and processes were tossed by the wayside. Everyone had hardware, locally, often sitting dormant between usage times. But now, think about the future with a cloud, either private or public does not matter. Now if your line of business (LOB) needs a machine for a few days, create a new image using your approved image, and the LOB has it in a matter of hours at most.
How did this used to work? Well your line of business could have approached the IT department, requested new hardware, found out whether it was in-house, waited for it to be ready, provisioned and installed what was needed, and then used the hardware for what they wanted. And that scenario worked if everyone followed the corparate policy, but then it might still take days to weeks to get what they needed. This gave rise to lines of businesses engaging in Shadow IT. Not only were they getting the hardware outside of normal procedures but hiring people to then support this acquired hardware and software, while trying to keep that hardware acquisition a secret.
The cloud removes the need for all of this. Who needs dormant systems and software when you can acquire it effortlessly? Why spend money for hardware that is just sitting there? None of this makes sense anymore. The cloud can provide for your organization with lower overhead and lower usage costs. Only paying for what you need, and getting it when you need it.
All of these benefits, taken together, set off a bright lightbulb for me. Although I must admit it was almost like being “hit with a 2×4.” I feel almost silly for not having understood the power was in its delivered simplicity. I was expecting some huge technical reason, but the truth is, it is just simple. The technology behind the cloud is fantastic, but really that does not matter to the user, what matters is that it just works. And while we have come a long way since the days of the mainframe hosting, there are a lot of similarities to what we are doing now, but light years ahead. This is how I learned to love the cloud.
Jim I think you have really captured the man essence of the pull of cloud. For me more as a business guy than techie (apologies!) – it all reverts to business agility and business efficiency. You buy what you need when you need it. My IT costs are as predictable as my other services such as supply chain, R&D , etc., and I can easier get the transparency of these costs per project or marketing campaign etc.
Keep it coming!
@cloudstuff
Thanks for the great comments, I look forward to greater adoption of this tool in the IT toolbox!
Surprisingly insightful. I never spotted the difference between cloud and mainframe. Now it's obvious. It's self service. Having worked for a bank and had so much approvals process and waiting weeks for a slot to do an update I can see there's a world of difference between that and self service on demand business agility from cloud.
I think the Self Service aspect certainly takes us very far, and makes for a more user friendly system in the end.
Giving 'control' the user can be a great thing, but what is often missing the Cloud discussions is the topic of good service management. By this I mean that that the aspect of best practice 'controls', in terms of IT management – change management, capacity management, project management etc – seems to get overlooked. I've spent many years working in the area of managed services – another area which has been around for years and bears a striking resemblance to Cloud solutions – and we often found ourselves engaged with clients to address the very same issues that Cloud proposes to address: server sprawl, lack of standardisation of platforms, long lead times to establish systems, high cost for support and management of infrastructure. The cornerstone of successful managed services was high quality service management and this should be a central pillar in Cloud solutions also.
I certainly agree with you there, never having any over site or management at all reminds me of the case where a company built a private cloud for their developers, and one developer ended up running an Adult site from his cloud as no one was the wiser as there was not management. Clouds certainly are not fire and forget.
I want to thank Simon for elevating this aspect of cloud computing. Where we are in the curve reminds me a lot of public carrier network services — like frame relay — a dozen years ago. Cloud adoption will certainly accelerate when customers feel confident that their services will run without incident. That is what happened with carrier services. To get that confidence you are going to need pay heed to service management and the ways that you measure and maintain performance in the cloud. It is a different paradigm and people need to understand how to do it.
Great article,
Also here is another interesting article I come across today, " Why Microsoft Will Dominate Hypervisors, VDI, Cloud & more in 2012 ". I am sure you will find it interesting.