Cloud Hosting Delivers for Small and Medium Businesses

If you believe the hype, IT departments are about to turn out to be redundant and all that shiny hardware and flashing lights in the server room are about to become a factor of the past. We can look forward to the history and archaeology museums setting up displays of the IT Director's office next door to the caveman exhibit!

Well, sorry to burst the cloud computing marketing bubble, but this is just not so. Cloud computing is full of issues as the technology develops, and as with any fairly new and innovative service or item, the application to the real world is uncovering new issues just as a lot as discovering new ways in which old problems, such as privacy need to be handled. Cloud computing offers some extremely excellent benefits but, developers and users should exercise a degree of circumspection and engage in regular reality checks!

To provide you with some perspective, look at the fat-client 1990's with numerous claiming that the days of the mainframe had been over. Thin-client installations grew very rapidly wit the likes of Citrix and ASP's (Application Service Providers) generating use more stable technology and quicker internet links to deliver IT services. Has the mainframe disappeared? Completely not! There are still applications for the mainframe, and this IT historical review merely demonstrates that one-size will never fit all in a company context. So it is for cloud computing.

Cloud computing does offer exceptional advantages in terms of staff productivity and price savings, but companies ought to consider cloud computing as a complementary service to in-house hardware systems. Issues such as disaster recovery and data protection do not go away simply simply because you establish a virtual data center - if your service provider suffers a failure event which loses your information, you're still on the line for recovering that info and protecting it, so issues such as redundancy still apply in exactly the same way as together with your hard systems.

Cloud computing services are rapidly expanding, but the advertising hyperbole is still ignoring the underlying business need and demands from users. Far from seeing the demise of IT departments, they will merely be realigned to assessing which services offer competitive and business benefits for their businesses and how the mix of cloud and non-cloud services will be delivered. On the one hand, cloud computing offers lots of positives, but don't let the advertising gimmickry and trend setting hyperbole mislead you into thinking it is a universal panacea.

As with any other IT solution, you need to assess what is being offered based upon the company need, the business risk and associated costs. Choosing a answer provider who understands the commercial impact and problems is important, but you're also searching for a trusted partner who will spell out the short-comings in any proposed answer, including cloud computing.

While it is simple sufficient to get carried away with the fashion, we can expect plenty of businesses to go down the road of implementing cloud projects until the fashion bubble bursts and reality sets in; once that happens, IT managers who exercised correct business discretion and good judgment will probably be the ones who are expanding their departments and not searching for a brand new job. Just as any other challenge facing companies these days, cloud computing presents a whole new raft of opportunities and pitfalls to trap the unwary or reckless.