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In-house server is an in-house cloud
It's semantics and economies of scale.
Tailor-made clothes to off-the-rack.
Developing nations cycle of quality. We've suffered through initially the 'Made in Japan', 'Made in Korea', 'Made in India', 'Made in Taiwan' and now 'Made in China'. The products start off as rubbish, until everyone on earth has bought one, then you increase the quality and sell the 2nd one to everyone again. A repeating cycle until 5 or 6 product life-cycles later you have the same quality as the one you could have initially bought that was 'Made in Germany' or where-ever.
Companies have gone from terminals to PC's on desks, to in-house email, to full networking, to integrated office systems, to web-based, to mobile and so it goes on. The IT industry is driven by trends, buzz-words, future-guessing, sales coups, shedding responsibility, etc.
If you have an in-house server system that allows mobile communications from anywhere in the world via the Internet, then you already have a 'cloud'. An in-house cloud. If it is managed properly it will have replacement hardware cycles, redundant paths, backup systems, UPS systems etc consummate with the value of the data and the service to the organisation. If it loses $1,000 a minute when it's down, then the emergency planning will be pretty good, but if it just means you do something else for an hour or a day, then the investment will be less.
Do half the cloud users know where their data is, how secure it is, where it is backed up to, the recovery plans if the data-centre was subject to varying levels of misfortune or attack, how long recovery would take when ALL customers are vying for it at the same time, what the exclusions in the contract are, etc. etc.?
It is similar to the web. A web-store may look 100% solid, but be working from a bedroom in an apartment block. If the products are as advertised, the payment and delivery are not compromised and support service is honest and available, then it's a fair business. What is not OK is when that same model is hosting your companies entire IT data needs.
Like fashion, this will come full circle. DEC used to have terminals accessing centralised data and that model worked well. It just lacked the flexibility of use that a desktop PC had. Now we desire a mobile web browser and comprehensive communication device and application launcher in our pocket.
But does it matter whether the data is shared from in-house or a 3rd party cloud. Not to the user - unless it gets compromised and the data is gone! Does it matter to the company? They aim to justify it by economy of scale, reduced staff and access to a share of better systems than they could afford in-house. Fair enough. Good business sense.
But what happens if their client list appears to be in use by a startup, the service goes down nationally, they cannot opt for certain desired features, they are in a queue when it comes to recovery, 10,000 credit card numbers are swiped, they are unable to change and grow in any direction other than one sanctified by the cloud-holder, they wait 20 mins on the phone to get support, etc. etc. A rounded decision which itemises the risks needs to be part of the decision.
And if they think this is the end of the story, they are dreaming. Cloud apps next, pay-per-use, fully absorbed into the cloud system and then the government changes the rules or a company finds a loophole and they are stung by some data-mining operation.
Tailor-made clothes to off-the-rack.
Developing nations cycle of quality. We've suffered through initially the 'Made in Japan', 'Made in Korea', 'Made in India', 'Made in Taiwan' and now 'Made in China'. The products start off as rubbish, until everyone on earth has bought one, then you increase the quality and sell the 2nd one to everyone again. A repeating cycle until 5 or 6 product life-cycles later you have the same quality as the one you could have initially bought that was 'Made in Germany' or where-ever.
Companies have gone from terminals to PC's on desks, to in-house email, to full networking, to integrated office systems, to web-based, to mobile and so it goes on. The IT industry is driven by trends, buzz-words, future-guessing, sales coups, shedding responsibility, etc.
If you have an in-house server system that allows mobile communications from anywhere in the world via the Internet, then you already have a 'cloud'. An in-house cloud. If it is managed properly it will have replacement hardware cycles, redundant paths, backup systems, UPS systems etc consummate with the value of the data and the service to the organisation. If it loses $1,000 a minute when it's down, then the emergency planning will be pretty good, but if it just means you do something else for an hour or a day, then the investment will be less.
Do half the cloud users know where their data is, how secure it is, where it is backed up to, the recovery plans if the data-centre was subject to varying levels of misfortune or attack, how long recovery would take when ALL customers are vying for it at the same time, what the exclusions in the contract are, etc. etc.?
It is similar to the web. A web-store may look 100% solid, but be working from a bedroom in an apartment block. If the products are as advertised, the payment and delivery are not compromised and support service is honest and available, then it's a fair business. What is not OK is when that same model is hosting your companies entire IT data needs.
Like fashion, this will come full circle. DEC used to have terminals accessing centralised data and that model worked well. It just lacked the flexibility of use that a desktop PC had. Now we desire a mobile web browser and comprehensive communication device and application launcher in our pocket.
But does it matter whether the data is shared from in-house or a 3rd party cloud. Not to the user - unless it gets compromised and the data is gone! Does it matter to the company? They aim to justify it by economy of scale, reduced staff and access to a share of better systems than they could afford in-house. Fair enough. Good business sense.
But what happens if their client list appears to be in use by a startup, the service goes down nationally, they cannot opt for certain desired features, they are in a queue when it comes to recovery, 10,000 credit card numbers are swiped, they are unable to change and grow in any direction other than one sanctified by the cloud-holder, they wait 20 mins on the phone to get support, etc. etc. A rounded decision which itemises the risks needs to be part of the decision.
And if they think this is the end of the story, they are dreaming. Cloud apps next, pay-per-use, fully absorbed into the cloud system and then the government changes the rules or a company finds a loophole and they are stung by some data-mining operation.
Posted by techrepublic@...
30th May
