Does your enterprise even need a formal cloud policy?

Grazed from ITWorldCanada. Author: Don Sheppard.

With all the buzz on cloud migration, IT industry experts have insisted that enterprises need a corporate cloud computing policy, but is it really necessary for cloud success? Is an explicit cloud policy essential, nice to have, or optional? By cloud policy, I mean an enterprise-wide cloud governance statement of direction, not just a tactical IT directive or a departmental purchasing rule. Enterprise policies typically cover business critical topics such as:

• Product – what business do you want to be in (and not in)?
• Personnel – rules for human resources, ethical behaviour and fairness
• Legal – commitment to meet regulatory, compliance and government relations requirements
• Finances – practices for accounting, use of capital and delegation of authority…

Traditional IT is typically not the subject of explicit business policies. Why does cloud computing warrant being elevated to a higher level? The table below compares “legacy” IT to cloud-based IT, and illustrates some of the major differences…

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