Focus Experts Briefing: Top 7 Misconceptions about Public Clouds

May 9, 2011 Focus Experts included: Andrew Baker Ben Kepes Dennis Morgan JP Morgenthal

Focus Research 2011

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Focus Experts Briefing: Top 7 Misconceptions about Public Clouds

What are the top misconceptions about public clouds? topics: Expert Briefing Expert Content Cloud Computing

Information Technology

Executive Summary As a deployment model, the public cloud is perhaps the most traditional sense of cloud computing, as resources are provisioned on a self-service basis over the Internet, via Web applications/Web services, from an off-site third-party provider. Straightforward as that seems, there are myths and misconceptions that surround the public cloud. So what are the top misconceptions about the public cloud? In this guide, Focus Experts Andrew Baker, Ben Kepes, Dennis Morgan, JP Morgenthal go myth-busting, and share their favorite inaccuracies about the public cloud. After reading this guide, check out the entire discussion and join the conversation: http://focus.com/c/GCY/.

Expert Opinions 1. If it resides on the Internet, it must be in a public cloud. 2. Applications in the public cloud are naturally scalable. 3. Leveraging public clouds automatically reduces IT expenditure. 4. Public clouds mitigate the need for an IT department. 5. Public clouds havent matured enough for enterprise deployment. 6. There are inherent security risks in public clouds. 7. Public cloud is inevitable and will be a game-changer.

Focus Experts Briefing: Top 7 Misconceptions about Public Clouds

Focus Research 2011

Focus Experts Briefing: Top 7 Misconceptions about Public Clouds

What are the top misconceptions about public clouds? 1. If it resides on the Internet, it must be in a public cloud. Public cloud is simply any product or service residing somewhere else on the Internet. Just because something is on the Internet, doesnt mean it is in, or part of, a cloud. The cloud has many properties, but some key ones are 1) self-provisioning: ease of provisioning by the end user; 2) elasticity: quickly grow or reduce in size or number of instances, as warranted. If you can sign up today, get yourself going with two instances, users or other units of operation, and then increase that a week from now to 10, and then decrease that a month from now to three users all without contacting customer service then youre probably in the cloud. Hosting Lotus Notes in a remote data center that you dont control is not the cloud. (Baker) Running applications in the public cloud makes them cloud apps. You can have cloud servers running legacy apps. If I stick my homegrown application on an Amazon EC2 instance, does that suddenly make it a cloud app? No. Unless, of course, Im in the marketing department of a firm that is falling behind in market share. Then, I say that it is, and get on the cloud-washing bandwagon. Cloud apps, which might very well be synonymous with SaaS (Software as a Service) apps, also have the elasticity and self-provisioning characteristics mentioned earlier. Cloud apps are built that way. Its about features and functionality and characteristics, rather than location. (Baker) 2. Applications in the public cloud are naturally scalable. Running an application in the cloud makes it automatically scalable. Some people believe that because the cloud is itself a highly scalable entity, anything running in this environment will inherit the ability to scale. This is an incorrect belief. Applications that are deployed in the cloud must be designed to scale and understand the implications of running in a multi-tenant environment. Adding additional instances doesnt always fix bottlenecks created by single points of failure. These must be designed out of the system. (Morgenthal) 3. Leveraging public clouds automatically reduces IT expenditure. Public clouds are always cheaper. See my blog post Will Cloud Reduce IT Spend? On Moores Law and Realities http://diversity.net.nz/will-cloud-reduce-it-spend-on-moores-law-and-realities/2011/02/09/ the contention being that a reduction in unit price increases total demand. Therefore cloud may lead to an increase in IT spend but, since cloud is directly related to revenue, this isnt necessarily a bad thing. (Kepes) Cloud is always less expensive than other alternatives. One of the more complex issues facing cloud computing today is the lack of ability to perform apples-to-apples comparisons between cloud service provider offerings and between public and private offerings. If you have already invested in hardware that meets your needs and is running your application, then a move to the cloud may not reduce your overhead as you envision it will. Moreover, users often forget that the cloud does not alleviate all license fees, so you may be paying those on top of your cloud service provider fees. (Morgenthal)
Focus Experts Briefing: Top 7 Misconceptions about Public Clouds Focus Research 2011

4. Public clouds mitigate the need for an IT department. Cloud is an alternative to having an IT department. The cloud is a resource for acquiring compute resources. However, what is running on those resources still needs to be defined and managed. Perhaps you may require fewer individuals if your relinquish the need to manage your own data center, but you will still need administration, help desk and application support. You can outsource this, but that has nothing to do with cloud computing, thats simply acquiring managed services. (Morgenthal) 5. Public clouds havent matured enough for enterprise deployment. Public clouds are only for crazy start-ups and not sufficiently robust for enterprise. Ive seen comments lately from Fortune 500 company CIOs saying that the vast majority of their organizations have some deployment of public cloud. The days of public cloud being only for SMB email are well and truly gone. (Kepes) 6. There are inherent security risks in public clouds. Public clouds have some inherent security failings. Quite simply, I dont know many organizations that can afford to hire the smarts to run their data centers of the levels that Amazon, Rackspace, Microsoft et al do. By going public, youre sharing in a level of security setup that is world-class, but only paying for a tiny sliver of the cost. (Kepes) The public cloud is not secure. I do not want to mislead anyone on the point about security in the cloud. It exists there too. To find out the security details and your business security requirements, it is similar to what you do today. Clear text can be intercepted in the Internet as can encrypted data. That, I believe, remains the same if in a cloud environment. The rub comes in as to how cloud vendors store your data (clear or encrypted data) and the degree of commingled data. Can government regulators and consumers feel confident that their data fields are safe? Companies have to ask themselves, are their data safe today outside the cloud? If entering the cloud with unsafe data, then the result will be the same there. Trust in who you do business with is very important. Do you trust Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, HP and many others with you security needs and wants? If you need help, hire a good consultant that you trust to help. Security is important to everyone (businesses and consumers). Do your due diligence and garner trust with your vendor(s) and yourself and you will be fine. (Morgan) 7. Public cloud is inevitable and will be a game-changer. Public cloud will be the way everything is done going forward. I never understand our desire to insist that everything we are doing today will be totally eradicated in three, five, seven or 10 years from now. There will certainly be many casualties of technology advances as time goes on, but mostly, they die for financial or political reasons, not simply because Technology X is better than Technology Y. We still have radio after all these years, and well still have functions, departments, businesses and possibly entire industries that are not cloud-enabled in 2020. And many of these will actually be fine, too. Not everything belongs in the cloud, not everything is ready for the cloud, not everyone can mitigate the new issues they create for themselves by putting things in the cloud, etc. Those who can gain the advantages should do so, and those who cannot should spend their money in ways that they understand better or will have a greater impact on their particular business. (Baker) Read the entire discussion, and join the conversation: http://focus.com/c/GCY/
Focus Experts Briefing: Top 7 Misconceptions about Public Clouds Focus Research 2011

Contributors

Andrew Baker

Director, Service Operations, SWN Communications Inc. Focus Expert

Ben Kepes

Director, Diversity Analysis Focus Adviser

Dennis Morgan

Chief Enterprise Architect, dkmorgan19xx Focus Expert

JP Morgenthal

Cloud Evangelist, Smartronix Focus Expert

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Focus Experts Briefing: Top 7 Misconceptions about Public Clouds

Focus Research 2011