Clouding the Issue? Facts and Myths About Cloud Computing

Moreover, there has been a shift in the perception of acceptable risk in recent years. On the whole, we now see online banking, investment management and so on as acceptable — or at least risks worth taking — so maybe it’s time for cloud computing.

Cloud is green
Well, it might reduce your power consumption, but those data centers on which the cloud are built have to run on something. In 2010, they accounted for 1.3 percent of the world’s electricity consumption. So to some extent, it’s pushing the problem around. Electric car companies claim their vehicles have low emissions, but those batteries have to be made somewhere don’t they? Though, it is true to say that one big virtual server is more efficient than the equivalent number of physical servers. So to check the green box, you need to choose a data center that consumes renewable resources like those found in Canada and the Nordic countries.

Cloud costs more in the long run
It depends how you work it out. I could make a convincing demonstration either way with persuasive charts and numbers, but the greatest benefit of cloud is that it allows you to focus your resources and energies on your mission, not on IT. When you work out the costs of buying and maintaining servers, upgrades, power consumption, etc., it’s easy to illustrate that cloud can cost less over time.

It’s on the Internet, so it will be slow
Not as much of a problem these days. Internet connections are faster and more reliable while the servers in the data centers are more powerful and able to crunch the numbers more quickly. You can also “borrow” power on demand in the cloud. As long as it’s a true cloud application, performance should not be a problem.

Beware the cloud-wash
Some vendors do little more than add the word “cloud” to their marketing materials and hope to catch a ride on the gravy train. A hosted Windows application does not a cloud app make. It just moves all the old problems to another server. Cloud usually implies virtualized servers, a transparent infrastructure (you shouldn’t need to log on to the server just to use your app), multi-tenanted applications and contractually managed solutions (not technically managed).