Toe in the Cloud: Tighter IT Budgets Lead Business and IT to Ease into Cloud Hosting

No one is immune to the effects of these tough economic times … especially not the IT department. IT resources are being stretched thin and CIOs are being asked to do more with less. Many times these same CIOs are being asked by the CFO, “I’ve read about the cloud computing thing … Why aren’t we using the cloud instead of buying so many servers?” But is the cloud ready? The answer, as any good engineer would say, is, “it depends.”

The cloud is already recognized as a great alternative for Internet sites, hosted e-mail, scalable storage and on-demand computing needs. Those who have embraced the cloud for these purposes say it offers them exactly the kind of computing they need, when they need it, and at a reasonable price with no commitments. Projects are implemented faster and IT is better prepared for unpredictable traffic patterns, spikes or last-minute “emergencies.” But while the benefits of cloud-based hosting are compelling, there is still resistance.

Resistance to the cloud comes primarily from two fronts, IT pros that are used to managing their own hardware, and business executives who fear the cloud as an unknown and insecure world where everybody’s data is intertwined with no boundaries or safeguards. Both feel safer knowing their servers are controlled and running under their own supervision. But the price for that security is substantial and the security of the cloud is already very good and only getting better. As the economy digs its way out of this recession, tighter budgets and fewer resources will lead many IT and business professionals to their first experience with cloud and/or the more traditional managed hosting.

Start with a Hybrid

Assuming this aforementioned resistance can be removed, is the cloud really ready for everything? The answer is probably not, but it is ready for everyone. The cloud certainly is ready for some portion of your applications and IT infrastructure needs. One important thing to remember about cloud is that it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Cloud can be a component of a larger IT infrastructure strategy that may include in-house data centers, co-location, or managed hosting. In fact, the hybrid combination of cloud plus traditional infrastructure is probably the best answer for most companies. A hybrid approach can provide you the cost savings, the scalable on-demand infrastructure, and the security you need with very few tradeoffs.

Building a hybrid strategy requires some upfront planning. For our purposes, there are essentially three buckets of applications; those which could live completely within the cloud, those which require completely dedicated infrastructure, and those applications where a combination of the cloud and dedicated would be ideal. Start by taking an inventory of your applications portfolio and try to sort them into these three categories. And remember, it’s not all-or-nothing … a single application could potentially span across both dedicated and cloud infrastructure.

The services that require a high degree of security or are very I/O or database intensive probably ought to stay on traditional dedicated infrastructure for now. Applications that are public facing or scale up and down unpredictably are good candidates for cloud. And then there’s everything in between. If you need a little help, here are some applications that might fall into the various categories:

Apps that can be hosted in the cloud today:

• Your company’s blog and support wiki
• Your Exchange or IMAP e-mail
• The landing page for marketing’s latest mega-promotion
• The brochure-ware Web sites for your company’s hundreds of products and brands
• The test/dev servers that your developers seem to need more of every day
• Data storage for e-mail archives, backups, log retention
• A minimal remote disaster recovery capability
• New applications that are still in development or ready for pilot

Apps that probably need dedicated infrastructure:

• The corporate ERP system
• Enterprise data warehouse
• Your credit card processing services
• The launch codes for the country’s nuclear arsenal
• Storage for the designs of the latest secret R&D project
• Applications that require specialized hardware or operating systems not available in cloud

I’ve intentionally left the hybrid category off my list because I think this is the most difficult to generalize. At the same time, I also believe this category has the biggest payoff. There are dozens, possibly hundreds, of applications in every IT organization that will benefit from a cloud combined with traditional infrastructure.

How do you tap into the cloud to create these hybrid solutions? I’ll readily admit that it can be difficult when the cloud is 2,000 miles away and you’re trying to solve the physics problem better known as the speed of light. If your cloud is at a distance, then a hybrid strategy is probably limited to applications that can utilize the cloud for batch processing of some sort. You might also make use of cloud storage for applications that are not sensitive to latency or for which you can cache data locally.

But there are even better hybrid options on the horizon and even some available today. Providers who offer cloud and complement it with traditional infrastructure in the same data center can open up a much larger set of options than cloud-only providers. Imagine having the cloud connected to your physical servers via gigabit Ethernet rather than over the Internet. This type of hybrid approach offers the most flexibility possible and is emerging as a promising way to take advantage of computing as a service without the tradeoffs.

Adversity does spawn innovation and even a willingness to try new things. If you’re making any changes in your infrastructure strategy, take a hard look at this type of hybrid cloud solution. It could save you a lot of capex dollars and allow you to continue to grow in this economy.

Most businesses today are still very much in favor of managing their data in a traditional manner. And no one is going to make a wholesale shift to cloud hosting overnight. But as the business climate changes, we can expect to see more business and IT professionals adapt, overcome and improvise with one foot in the cloud and the other on more solid and familiar ground.