Pro Cloud Computing

Cloud computing offers speed, simplicity and saves you money as well.

Some sceptics might write cloud computing off as just another bandwagon, but there's more to it than marketing hype.

The argument is most clear-cut in the case of branch offices or SMEs. Our office is fairly small, and we run the usual range of server applications - the Web server, SQL, Exchange, SharePoint, backup and archive.

Our hard-pressed system administrators are seldom seen at coffee break or enjoying the spring sunshine, for two very good reasons:

1) Free time? What free time? They have no time to waste on frivolities such as coffee breaks, their time is overbooked keeping the servers patched and maintained, and working out how to make the servers bigger/faster/better without spending a fortune.

2) If they do appear, people descend from all sides to complain about server downtime, worries about security scares, running out of space, slow response times on the Web site. So they hide in their own little den behind heaps of cases and cables, pretending they're not there.

OK, so it's not really quite that bad, but any of you who have responsibilities for hardware and server software will recognise the picture. Keeping kit and apps up and running takes a lot of resources. So why not give someone else that problem?

Think about what happens when the boss tells you that you need to double the capacity of one of your main applications. It's a reasonable bet that you'll be expected to do it for peanuts, and in the next three days. If you were using cloud computing, you could smile gently rather than having a dizzy fit. Adding new capacity or even new applications is just a matter of ticking a few boxes, without any need to invest in new kit, learn yet another tortuous management interface, or buy new software.

There are three main benefits to cloud computing - speed, simplicity, and spending.

Let's start with speed. If your server applications are cloud based, you can be up and running with an application in days rather than months. Installing and configuring a server and the applications that run on it isn't something to be approached lightly, as anyone who's ever spent Sunday afternoons sweating over impenetrable knowledge base articles and wondering just why Windows Service xxx refuses to start will know only too well.

In contrast, your cloud service is off-the-peg. You don't build your servers, you subscribe and the capacity comes over the Net, fully working, immediately.

Next comes simplicity. Once you've got a server and the applications on it finally up and running, you have to maintain and manage it, and that can be just as time consuming and irritating. So why do it? Let someone else be the specialist, let them worry about the nuts and bolts of the hardware, capacities, performance, so that you don’t have to. You can concentrate on the more important stuff, the business processes that actually make the company money. Just think, you'll never wake up on Patch Tuesday with a feeling of dread again.

Then there's spending. Servers and server apps aren't cheap, and in most cases you end up paying for kit you don't use. Most servers are under utilised, with spare capacity bought and built in 'just in case'. So why do that? Pay per use, pay per month. Even if you end up using the full allocation, you haven't had to pay for hardware up-front, so the cash stays in the bank for longer.

What's more, when yet another 'upgrade' to an application means starting again with yet another expensive hardware upgrade, it's not your problem, it's those nice people in the cloud.

For small companies, the pay-per-use model is particularly good, because it means you can have as expensive an infrastructure as the largest corporate monster; it's just you only have a little bit of it.

In summary, the main reason people aren't using cloud computing is irrational fear. In the old days, people made their own candles, trimmed their own oil lamps. When this new-fangled electricity stuff arrived, I'm sure there were lots of people who worried about what would happen if they flicked the switch and no light appeared, so they stayed with candles.

Avoiding the cloud is like staying with candle power when you could be reading in comfort.