The New Cloud, Not the Same as the Old Cloud

Grazed from ITBusinessEdge. Author: Arthur Cole.

Everyone is moving toward “the cloud” and it seems that most individuals and organizations have a pretty good idea of what that is and how they hope to use it. But the cloud is not one thing, and it is most certainly not eternal. It is constantly growing and changing, with new services and new underlying technologies continually adding to and reinterpreting what we know about living and working in a cloud-based data environment. So even while we pursue our cloud strategies, there needs to be some realization that by the time the transition is complete, the cloud may not be what it appeared to be at the outset.

Key cloud providers are already tapping into this reality by pitching their services as “a new kind of cloud.” Rackspace, for example, places great stock in its ability to provide a “Managed Cloud,” which is its way of describing the specialized services and technological hand-holding it offers in contrast to the do-it-yourself commodity experiences that most providers offer…

In this view, cloud infrastructure is of marginal use without services, and enterprises that fall for low-cost commodity offerings often pay the price of increased cost, complexity and aggravation on the back end…

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