What would modern life be without persistent myths? Cloud computing has attracted its share of myths and recently, Amazon's vice president of Amazon Web Services (AWS), Adam Selipsky, responded to the five (5) most prevalent myths about cloud computing.
Myth 1: The Cloud is Not Reliable
Myth 2: Security and Privacy Are Not Adequate in the Cloud
Myth 3: I can Get All the Benefits of the Cloud by Creating My Own Private Cloud
Myth 4: If I can't Move Everything at Once, the Cloud Isn't for Me
Myth 5: Cost is the Biggest Driver of Cloud Adoption
Mr. Selipsky responded to Myth 1 by stating, "We (Amazon) have strong data durability - we've designed Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) for eleven 9s of durability. We store multiple copies of each object across multiple locations."
Small businesses are lucky if they have multiple copies of their data backed up to tapes or removable disks. If they are prudent, they are using disk arrays to protect their on-line data. If they have gone to the expense of implementing a Storage Area Network (SAN) they have increased the "durability" of their data even more, but at a significant capital cost. Plus, they must take on the maintenance and upgrading of their premises-based data storage systems and retain the services of employees or contractors skilled in providing this kind of support. You can get data "durability" on-premises but at a price you may not be able to afford.
As for Myth 2, Mr. Selipsky replied, "Amazon Web Services' data center security is identical to the best practices employed in private facilities today...at the physical data center level, the Amazon cloud has equal or better isolation than could be expected from dedicated infrastructure."
Let's be real here. Small businesses don't typically go out and hire the best data security talent in the industry to secure their data. They are likely to make some effort at security, but they don't have unlimited funds to toss around on data security. In most small businesses, stealing a server or two could put them out of business and it would not be all that hard to do it.
Myth 3 fared no better when Mr. Selipsky said, "With a private cloud you have to manage capacity very carefully...or you or your private cloud vendor will end up over-provisioning. So you're going to have to either get very good a capacity management or you're going to wind up overpaying."
So if you roll your own private cloud you better be prepared to deal with the capital expense and the planning effort to manage capacity so you are not over-provisioning and paying through the nose. When you think about the premise of public cloud computing as an elastic service where you pay for what you use, you can see the absurdity of trying to build a private cloud that compares with what you can get using a public cloud.
Taking on Myth 4 elicited this response from Mr. Selipsky, "We believe this is nearly impossible and ill-advised. We recommend picking a few apps to gain experience and comfort then build a migration plan."
Well, I could not have put it better myself, although I think small businesses will be moving all of their IT services to the cloud sooner than enterprise organizations because they don't have the capital investment in existing data centers to amortize, and they run fewer applications, so it will take less time to figure out how to move them to the cloud.
Mr. Selipsky's response to Myth 5 runs counter to a lot of "conventional" cloud wisdom, when he argued, "There is a big savings in capex (capital expense) and cost but what we find is that one of the main drivers of adoption is that time-to-market for ideas is much faster in the cloud because it lets you focus your engineering resources on what differentiates your businesses."
As a believer in Myth 5, I find myself in a partial disagreement with Mr. Selipsky on this one. I think cost reduction is a primary cloud driver for the reason that if you can spend less (20% to 80%) to run an app in the cloud, then that will be the reason you decide to do it. The fact that cloud apps will improve your business agility with regard to "time-to-market" is a close, but secondary cloud driver for most small businesses. However, for business start-ups the "time-to-market" factor could easily be the driver for cloud computing, especially if the start-up decides to bypass creating on-premises IT systems and locates their IT services in the cloud from the get-go.
In his closing comment, Mr. Selipsky speaks the truth when he says, "a lot of this (cloud computing) revolves around psychology and fear of change, and human beings needing to gain comfort with new things." He goes on to say that over time the psychological barriers to cloud computing are being overcome.
From my perspective, the march to cloud computing has begun in earnest. Those who see the benefits of cloud computing are either doing it now or planning to do it soon. As the "network effects" of cloud computing take hold, more people will be attracted to the cloud because that is where the benefits of 21st century computing will be accruing. To paraphrase a slogan from Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign...Its the apps, stupid! When all the apps are being developed for the cloud, that's where everyone will go to run them.
2010 is looking to be a watershed year for cloud computing. The major players are "all in" and the level of interest in the cloud has never been greater. The march to cloud computing is definitely ON. When will you stop "hugging" your servers and embrace the cloud?
Note: The quotes by Mr. Selipsky were originally published in eWeek on April 19th, 2010 under the title "Amazon Debunks Top 5 Myths of Cloud Computing" by Darryl K. Taft. The commentary is my own.
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