Cloud it or not to Cloud it: how much time is needed to move to the Cloud?

February 4, 2009 in User Experiences by pcalcada | 1 comment

My friend Sérgio has a problem. He wants to have more control over his monthly budget. And to be able to achieve his goal  he has developed a very nice, simple, but very powerful spreadsheet application. But that was not enough: to be able to effectively manage his finances he had to be able to access to his application on a regular basis. So, how will he be able to do that? He has several computers and even a Nokia with a spreadsheet application (and a web browser). Where will he  put his application and how could he have it accessible every time and everywhere?

After infinite hours of brainwash about Cloud Computing and its amazing capabilities, Sérgio decided that this was the opportunity to try it. So he did it, he decided to use Google Docs, and  without any real faith, he uploaded the application (excel spreadsheet file). After a few seconds, there he was, using Cloud Computing with its full power…

This was a short post, and it only took a few seconds to read. It took almost the same time that Sérgio had to wait to use Cloud Computing. So, what are you waiting for?

I hope that you won’t wait as much as Gartner Consulting is proposing. They are saying that Cloud computing will not be at its full power until 2015. As you can see this is not exactly truth, Sérgio is already taking benefit of Cloud Computing. I’m another example, I’m using cloud-enabled applications in my daily work, and I can say that I’m taking real benefit from its utilization.  For more details about how this statement from Gartner Consulting is valued please follow the Cloud Computing Google Groups discussion pushed by Greg Pfister.

For more complex and detailed stories about the efforts to use Cloud Computing please read the Rick Mahn experiences.

Share/Save

Tags:

  1. Eric Novikoff’s avatar

    Eric Novikoff on March 15, 2009 at 4:28 pm

    Sérgio’s experience was a perfect Cloud story, much like the one that Amazon likes to tell about the New York Times converting all its back issues to machine-readable format in a weekend. But as a cloud infrastructure provider, I see the other side of the story: we get a lot of customers who come to us with failed implementations on Amazon, GoGrid, AppLogic, Mosso, etc. where they spent months trying to get it work without success. Admittedly, these customers are doing Infrastructure-as-a-Service implementations, but that is exactly what businesses need to move their software into the Cloud. By offering operations services (administration, consulting, setup, systems design, even coding) together with our cloud, we help these customers overcome these obstacles. However, many customers believe the stories such as Sérgio’s or Amazon’s and leap into the cloud without looking. Larger companies with mission-critical applications are familiar with the challenges of any change, so they’re understandably cautious. I’m very excited about the Cloud so I don’t want to scare people off, but it definitely pays to look at all the technical – and management – issues before leaping into the Cloud.

    -Eric Novikoff
    ENKI
    http://www.enkiconsulting.net