CLOUD COMPUTING
SUMMARY
“Every 20 years in the software business, we get a paradigm shift, (cloud) is the dominant
paradigm of our time” (R.Martin Chavez, cio, Goldman sachs). This paper is about influence
of that paradigm (cloud computing) on business firms. Cloud computing is revolutionary for
IT departments of companies. Paper entailed its influence on firms by citing six benefit
patterns, five business risks that it covers and recommendations for ceo’s.
Cloud computing is remarkably inexpensive. The IT thing which you need to do traditionally
cost you like $50 million (buying servers, mainframes, switches, routers) with cloud
computing you can do it just by spending $5 million. Because everything is there, you just
have to pay for the services you use. Cloud computing also helps managing your business
risks, you don’t have to spend huge dollars on setting up new projects for innovations, you
can even outsource your innovation to third party developers and vendors(salesforce.com)
the benefit will be you see reviews of users and you get strategic time to check whether
product worked or not.
Paper also emphasis on recommendations and couple of instructions for CIO’s. Embracing
the role of business architect, we cannot jump into the cloud ecosystem without proper
control change managements as their will be dependencies. If not managed properly whole
enterprise can go wrong.
CONTRIBUTION
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Highlighted the strategic role of cloud in a firm and how it has impacts on minimizing
risks in a company. Like scaling risk, apps on cloud are very elastic we can upscale an
app to accommodate more users and can even downscale it with no overhead, all
clients use one app but it is so much flexible that we can customize it according to
our needs(salesforce.com). so we don’t need huge outlay of funds and wait for
future returns.
Role of CIO: paper highlighted on cio’s to change there thinking with the arrival of
cloud computing. Because they are the one who will decide for a company to go
cloud or not, they must make careful examination about company’s strategic goals
prior to major action. CIO’s have the opportunity to transform from keeper of
technology into a true chief of information, now managing data as a company asset,
just as the CFO manages company finances( res: how cloud is changing the cio role by
ooracle)
COURSE
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IS and organizational designs( page78 ch#3 manging&using IS a strategic approach)
: IS has huge roles in defining how a organizational design would be. Companies like
TCS implemented outsourcing, entered new layer of leaders and decreased the
overhead on CEO’s. Here all the work is done on cloud you don’t need real data
centres, real implementation of applications at your site, consequently you don’t
need a team of experts to run them.
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Information resource: a strategic tool in gaining competence and customer as centre:
cloud is also an information resource, we got to know more about our customers as
showed in the facebook effect of cloud. Convergence of facebook, real time data and
social app with cloud, help companies to create apps with high customer
acceptance.
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How IT changes where and when work is done ( ch#4 page 116 textbook):Cloud is like
a whole set of databases, applications(CRM, accounting & HRM), tools all that you
need for your processes and you can’t see it(cloud is at vendor’s site) but you can
access it no matter in which part of world you are and can do your job. For those
who are in company attach Ethernet cable.
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IT assets(contd.slide#12 ch #2) :cloud computing comes under external it asset, not
owned by company and plays a huge role in organization structure.
ANALYSIS
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Cloud computing is shared, it has dependencies. There is a huge proliferation of apps
on your network that are not yours.(palo alto networks)
This paper does not comes in align with Carr’s IT doesn’t matter, as according to it IT
is commodity if one company gets benefit of cloud computing then other companies
are also welcomed by vendors to join cloud at same cost, it does not provide any
strategic competence.
Data breach, data loss, insecure interfaces and API’s are among the top nine threats
to cloud computing today. (example: mat honan, writer of wired magazine, in
summer of 2012, attackers broke into Mat’s Apple, Gmail and Twitter accounts. They
then used that access to erase all of his personal data in those accounts, including all
of the baby pictures Mat had taken of his 18 month old daughter) source: the
notorious nine by cloud security alliance.org
LESSONS
Cloud computing provides companies with elasticity and flexibility that has never been
imagined before. It lowers down costs, no human experts to maintain real data centres at
site. Pay for whatever you use whenever you use. But before entering we need to dig deep
into what our organizational goals are, do we actually need it and how will our customer
respond to it.
Are the people in organization and customers ready to accept that change, as training
employees about the new system may cause complications.
Why successful
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Companies who adapt to cloud, by aligning their IT strategy and business strategy.
Business goals must not be overlooked
Companies who have proper programs to teach their staff and customers about the
big change they are undergoing.
Why not successful
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Long term view of whether we need to outsource our data centres or we are just
following everybody in the market.
Choosing a vendor who have a good track record
It also depends on the fate, amazon’s cloud failure for example.