Cloud Computing and the PSO

I am going to take a break from the topic of the "Top 10 Qualities of a World-class Consultant." I know you are all chomping at the bit, but you'll have to come back next week for Quality #5.

Instead, I wanted to post a timely blog as a follow up to a PS Village Executive Breakfast session that I attended this morning. The topic was "Surviving and Winning as the IT World Moves into the Cloud." Russ Klein and Dick Csapler from The Aberdeen Group presented on the topic.

Russ and Dick spelled out the value proposition for IT moving hardware and software to the cloud. In a nutshell, the cloud provides businesses to apply the "right amount of [system] resources when they its needed." According to the guys from Aberdeen, processing power of client-server environments is starting to rival that of Mainframe environments, total cost of ownership is lower given that the Cloud providers own the responsibility of keeping up with the latest and greatest technologies and the investments in cap ex for IT managers is lower with the Cloud.

Start-up businesses are more like to build applications in the cloud, and enterprise businesses are moving less mission critical applications, data back-ups, and fail-over systems to the cloud.

The major concerns that were discussed centered on Privacy and Security and culture - how does an IT manager measure success and budget for supporting the business when they have no cap ex budget - or a significantly reduced budget. As Dick said, though, Amazon EC2 probably employees more systems, tools, and experts to ensure the highest level of quality than most businesses could afford to do themselves. As enterprises find success with the less critical apps, they are likely to start to move the more critical apps to the cloud, as well.

So where does PS fit in. Russ and Dick mentioned a number of new consulting opportunities that are coming available due to the advent of Cloud Computing. Consulting groups can provide services designed to:

1. Support the migration from "on premises" environments to the cloud
2. Assist in business and IT process re-engineering efforts to support applications that are now hosted in the cloud
3. Ensure legacy hardware is disposed of in an ecological manner and to assist businesses in developing a "Green IT" strategy
4. Ensure effective data mining from the old to the new environments

SaaS is one model for Cloud computing. In SaaS business, the products are often positioned as "self-service." As businesses move to a Cloud Computing model, however, more and more will reduce the IT staff and rely on PS teams to ensure that they have the right methodologies, can implement the solutions - including training, and can optimize and evolve their use of the tools available in a way that ensures business success. The focus will become less about "implementation" services - the Cloud providers will do that - and more about expert services that provide our customers with focus, experience, and expertise required to use IT solutions to achieve business results.