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I agree with the author, "dont fix it if its not broken". If legacy systems are working and will able to meet future expectations, then there is no need to move it to cloud.
that part of the job of the IT department is like that of the HR department and the Finance department - to see that what the company does is within the laws and rules that apply to them. Part of being an top level person in all three is to be very aware of the current laws of their speciality are applicable to the company, this is an area where the bulk of the company management are weak and it's way too easy for them to have a negative impact on corporate activity by jumping into something that is in violation of those laws or rules.
A case in point of the above is one I've seen in the news a few times. A senior level exec from outside the IT area finds the cabled network in his personal office restricts how he wants to lay it out. He tells IT to put in more points to plug in. This takes time to organise the cabling and the maintenance staff. The exec gets fed up of waiting and puts in a wireless point and activates the IT dept disabled wireless on his laptop to allow him to make the changes while IT are getting things organised because he feels they aren't responding to his demands. The problem is he just destroyed all the IT perimeter security because he doesn't understand how those things work, and has also just put a major contract at risk due to it's sections on minimum system security matters. The result is the exec is fired for cause when the wireless point is located.
In a related incident at a company I worked for one of the top execs was sold on the idea of a particular device that would act as gateway and Internet proxy. This all in one unit is ideal for a small to medium business, but totally useless for a large business or one with high security requirements. The exec only saw it as making his Internet access easier and faster, so he pushed the thing through upper management, against the advice of the IT gateway manager who was at a lower level of management. The result was we could either have our nice a secure existing gateway or the new device as nothing we could do would get the device working with our existing system, it had too much stuff built in and we couldn't change it. The order to replace the existing gateway with one of these device at each location only got changed when two major contractors who represented about 40% of the annual income pointed out the devices would negate the security provisions of the contracts and the company would lose the contracts. The result was a pile of gear worth close to a million bucks sitting in the corner gathering dust just because a non IT literate exec got a bee in his bonnet.
Just because one section of the company can benefit from a quick move or addition of something, doesn't mean the whole company will benefit or the final result will be an overall benefit. Decisions on specialist matters need to be made by the specialists - how would the marketing people feel about IT guys telling them how to run and ad campaign, yet they feel they can tell the IT people how to work IT.
A case in point of the above is one I've seen in the news a few times. A senior level exec from outside the IT area finds the cabled network in his personal office restricts how he wants to lay it out. He tells IT to put in more points to plug in. This takes time to organise the cabling and the maintenance staff. The exec gets fed up of waiting and puts in a wireless point and activates the IT dept disabled wireless on his laptop to allow him to make the changes while IT are getting things organised because he feels they aren't responding to his demands. The problem is he just destroyed all the IT perimeter security because he doesn't understand how those things work, and has also just put a major contract at risk due to it's sections on minimum system security matters. The result is the exec is fired for cause when the wireless point is located.
In a related incident at a company I worked for one of the top execs was sold on the idea of a particular device that would act as gateway and Internet proxy. This all in one unit is ideal for a small to medium business, but totally useless for a large business or one with high security requirements. The exec only saw it as making his Internet access easier and faster, so he pushed the thing through upper management, against the advice of the IT gateway manager who was at a lower level of management. The result was we could either have our nice a secure existing gateway or the new device as nothing we could do would get the device working with our existing system, it had too much stuff built in and we couldn't change it. The order to replace the existing gateway with one of these device at each location only got changed when two major contractors who represented about 40% of the annual income pointed out the devices would negate the security provisions of the contracts and the company would lose the contracts. The result was a pile of gear worth close to a million bucks sitting in the corner gathering dust just because a non IT literate exec got a bee in his bonnet.
Just because one section of the company can benefit from a quick move or addition of something, doesn't mean the whole company will benefit or the final result will be an overall benefit. Decisions on specialist matters need to be made by the specialists - how would the marketing people feel about IT guys telling them how to run and ad campaign, yet they feel they can tell the IT people how to work IT.
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