What is your biggest concern with cloud computing? What keeps your company from moving your business applications to the cloud? I’m curious–please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.
From what I’m hearing from many companies, the big issue is security. The idea that some other company controls their data is unsettling. What happens if there’s a security breach? What happens if a rogue employee at the cloud provider destroys or steals your data? Who has access to your data?
Those are all valid concerns. However, I think an even bigger question is this: What’s your Plan B? What happens if your cloud provider makes changes that you don’t like? What happens if they’re not as reliable as advertised? What happens if they aren’t as secure as you thought?
What’s your exit strategy?
Can you just take your data and your applications and migrate them back in-house or to another provider? Or, are you tied to that provider in some way? Are your apps locked into their proprietary database? Would breaking up with your cloud provider be a difficult process?
As businesses will soon learn, flexibility and portability are two of the most important aspects of cloud computing. Your applications should be built on an architecture that lets you move and deploy them at will. That way, you’re never locked to one cloud provider. That way, there’s always a Plan B.
So, how can you build flexible, cloud-ready applications that instantly port from one location to another? Here’s one way: Try m-Power. It lets you build cloud-ready applications quickly, using your current staff and skills. You can learn more right here.
Joe Stangarone is a 30+ year veteran of the IT industry and president of mrc—the software company behind the award winning development platform, 
2 comments
Weekly recap: 5 ways cloud computing will change IT, the key to great web software, and more… | mrc's Cup of Joe Blog says:
August 10, 2012 at 4:58 pm (UTC -5)
[...] 5 ways cloud computing will change IT Cloud computing sure gets all the attention these days, and appears set for widespread business adoption in the near future. How will this change the traditional IT department? This article lists a few ways. On a related note, if your company is considering cloud computing, make sure you can answer this question. [...]
Cloud Server says:
August 17, 2012 at 9:16 pm (UTC -5)
Security should not be an issue when moving to the cloud – as long as you are using a major provider. Cloud providers will usually have stronger security than most small to medium sized IT firms. The problem you touched on your post is vendor lock-in and that is indeed an issue.. If you choose the right “open” cloud provider (such as Amazon or Rackspace) you should be able to avoid this problem.