12.12.08
Is Cloud Computing The Infrastructure Of The Future?
Green IT – pie in the sky? No… head for the clouds! « Ivanka Menken
Reason for this is that cloud computing makes a lot of things easier to manage – sometimes even easier than when you have your IT internal.. and because most people follow the path of least resistance, the opportunities for Cloud Computing are almost without bound.
Let me say right up front that I have no crystal ball. I do not know whether “cloud computing” is going to mostly displace internally-hosted servers for most companies. I do know this much: if you are running a small, locally-owned retailer or restaurant, you very likely do not have even fifty employees. Why would you have much internally-hosted infrastructure? You probably need a single server that runs your point-of-sale system (cash registers) and handles both user accounts and file storage. Generally, if you’re running a “Pro” version of your operating system, a beefed-up workstation can serve those needs while it also serves as the manager’s terminal. In that case, you aren’t likely to host your own Web or mail servers–you’ll continue to pay a hosting service to provide those–and you aren’t likely to run any custom applications that would require Amazon or Google cloud-hosting services.
It is the larger businesses, especially those with a significant Web presence, where there are questions about how well this will fly. In my other job, I work for an organization with a fairly-large network. I honestly cannot see that organization exposing significant portions of its internal-facing infrastructure to the possibility of security breaches in external data centers. In other words, this is great for putting things on your world-facing Web site, but may not be so great for your internal sites and services. It all depends on your organization.
It will be interesting to see what happens. I look forward to it!
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