Five Myths Of Cloud Computing

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Five myths of cloud computing

So, where did cloud computing come from?
The IT industry has a habit of latching onto buzzwords and applying them everywhere. “Cloud” is no exception. So, to understand cloud computing, let’s ground the conversation in some definitions. As a practical baseline for our discussion, we cite the National Institute of Standards and Technology(NIST) definition of cloud computing published October 7, 2009:

a vehicle makes better financial sense. And beyond price, there are other important issues to consider such as performance, security, compliance, service-level agreements, and availability.

Cloud strategy is essential
At the core of cloud computing—whether you’re using a public cloud service, building your own private cloud, ortaking a hybrid cloud approach—is the need to have your specific requirements incorporated into a well-developed cloud strategy. It’s not a simple exercise, as your cloud roadmap must address all aspects of your performance, security, control, and availability requirements. In her article “Public Cloud vs. Private Cloud: Why Not Both?” Beth Schultz observes that many organizations today aregravitating toward a private cloud first in order to understand it within the confines of their own firewalls. She asserts that experts now believe it’s a viable option to base your cloud delivery decisions on an analysis of your applications. She advises organizations to “evaluate specific applications, factor in security and compliance considerations, and then decide what apps are appropriate for aprivate cloud, as well as what apps can immediately be shifted to the public cloud.”3 To help you develop your own strategy and roadmap, the HP Converged Cloud Workshop focuses on the key success factors and components required to develop a cloud solution, building consensus among stakeholders, and helping them understand the implications for the business and IT. During the one-day workshop, usinghighly visual displays, senior HP consultants cover topics such as cloud concepts, architecture, and key technologies including CloudSystem. Other topics include the service portfolio, management, financials, governance, and more.

“Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, ondemand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage,applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”
In 2008, Amy Schurr, in an article in Network World, cited Gartner research outlining the opportunity for cloud computing “to shape the relationship among consumers of IT services, those who use IT services, and those who sell them.” Ms. Schurr observed that“organizations are switching from company-owned hardware and software assets to per-use service models” and proposed that “[the] projected shift to cloud computing…will result in dramatic growth in IT products in some areas and significant reductions in other areas.”1 As seen with other major evolutionary transformations of IT over the last four decades, new technologies can be disruptive initially,with hype moving faster than reality. But when technology is understood, the benefits begin to outweigh the negatives. Cloud concepts can mean different things to different people, so let’s look at five cloud computing myths and separate fact from fiction.

Myth one: the public cloud is the most inexpensive way to procure IT services
A characteristic of the public cloud is a relativelyinexpensive “pay-as-you-use” model. For example, the starting price for standard on-demand instances with the Amazon EC2 Web service is less than a dime per hour based on system size, operating system, and locale. It’s easy to see why people think all delivery from the public cloud is cheaper than that delivered by internal IT. However, if you look under the covers, the picture changes. Here’s a...