The bad news is that for this post I have to admit to being over 40 (maybe even over 50…).

These days I’m often fascinated to see what 30-something MBAs in high tech marketing can come up with – and how much money they get to spend once they do. The latest, of course, is Cloud Computing and Cloud Storage. What is Cloud Computing? All your data and your applications are somewhere else and you connect to them over the common carrier (read: phone company) network. We did this 40 years ago. It was called mainframe computing.

This is an ideal scenario for smaller companies that don’t need much computing infrastructure and who cannot afford a systems maintenance staff. For the SOHO (small office, home office) market, this is a great thing. Over the years I've watched small businesses try to run their own infrastructure and it's not pretty.

But Cloud Computing isn't being marketed as a small business solution. The buzz is that this is the answer for everyone and everything.

However, for companies large enough to have or need an IT staff, there is little value here. What is the CIO going to do? Go to the CEO and say, “I quit. I just outsourced everything to the cloud. My job here is done.”

Let's look at a long-standing example. I’ve always been impressed by the success of Salesforce.com com who, by the way – when they talked to us a few years ago, did not encrypt the data you gave them and put it on a system you share with others. (Anyone read those stories about lost backup tapes...) I can’t see giving the life blood of my company to someone else to manage, nor having my staff rely on the vagaries of Verizon (or, in New Hampshire’s case, the literally bankrupt Fairpoint) as to whether they can do work today. Sorry.

This doesn't mean that we don't use web-based applications. We certainly do. But not for anything critical to our business.

Thursday, November 12, 2009 9:43:06 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)      Comments [0]  Management | Observations | Storage Management