Cloud computing is a hot topic both in Japan and around the world. With it, companies have the potential to gain competitive advantages that could make a real difference to business performance—whether shorter time to market, services that can be quickly turned up or down or reduced upfront IT costs, to name but a few. Yet despite its continued evolution, concerns remain. Is cloud computing secure? Will it provide reliable availability? Can an organization maintain control over business-critical systems and data that exist in the cloud?
Overbuild
Illustration by Phil Couzens
Building an enterprise infrastructure is challenging and costly. Yet many businesses today are actually intentionally overbuilding—and therefore overspending—as this has historically been the only proven means of ensuring that business-critical operations will remain in service, no matter what the world throws at them.
Companies depend on being able to provide consistent, reliable access to business-critical applications, and particularly applications such as external websites or customer portals which represent their brand, and their business to the outside world.
Yet too many organizations today have suffered from crashed websites or unavailable applications resulting from usage spikes. This is why overbuilding has become the norm—it ensures that the network will withstand the unexpected and in doing so also ensures that day-to-day activities can continue uninterrupted. From a business perspective, this means huge amounts of idle capacity for great sweeps of time, ‘just in case.’
Not surprisingly, therefore, that cloud computing is of such interest to organizations in Japan and around the globe. In a cloud computing environment, functionality is transferred out of the network and made available to enterprises on demand. In essence, service providers can leverage economies of scale to provide a highly reliable platform with greater cost and management efficiency.
Companies gain flexible access to large amounts of scalable computing power, giving them the freedom to adjust capacity up and down to support the natural cycles of their business. Resources can be added, turned off, or reassigned whenever necessary. Cloud computing is therefore a business enabler rather than a technical construct—a function that IT leaders are finding increasingly necessary as the IT role evolves.
Drivers
Cloud computing also creates an opportunity for IT departments to change their focus from deploying and supporting applications to managing the services that those applications provide. This allows the department to focus on high-value activities that align with and support the enterprise business goals.
The CIO can then function as a technology strategist, working with business units to understand their business needs and advise how best to use technology to accomplish their objectives.
Nevertheless, this is a big change in business strategy and, perhaps understandably, some business and IT leaders remain hesitant about stepping off the parapet and into the cloud. The usual concerns cited are security, availability and control. And it’s true that an effective cloud computing strategy must incorporate these factors, if it is to drive business success.
Trust
In cloud computing, servers, network capabilities and storage are provided to the enterprise as a service. In turn, data is delivered from the enterprise to the cloud, with attendant concerns about letting sensitive information move outside the company firewall.
These concerns must be adequately addressed. Industry standards and regulations such as HIPAA, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act (GLBA) and the Statement on Auditing Standards 70 (SAS-70) have very defined and measurable security requirements.
For cloud computing to be viable, providers must adhere to the same standards and controls that an organization would impose in-house. By their very nature, cloud computing service models involve transferring some control to a trusted service provider. But not all organizations will want all systems to migrate to the cloud, and therefore varying levels of control can be provided within the cloud computing model. As cloud computing becomes more available, the type and level of customization offered by a service provider will become a competitive differentiator.
Conclusion
Cloud computing is more than the driving force behind the next wave of technology innovation. It is a sound business strategy that helps organizations practice better financial management and creates a more sustainable, cost-efficient model for supporting IT services.
While valid concerns exist, they can be managed with proper preparation. Careful evaluation of vendors can help identify a service provider whose solution is enterprise-ready in key areas such as security, availability, and control. We at Verizon Business are excited about the potential of cloud-based computing to transform our customers’ business, and look forward to helping them navigate their way to future business success.
Itsuo Iso is the Executive Officer and President of Verizon Business in Japan.
