MYTH BUSTERS Know the Cloud.

MYTH BUSTER NO. 1DATA SECURITY

“A cloud provider cannot guarantee security.”

From a physical standpoint, public cloud datacenters are amongst the

most secure premises on the planet. Yet, at the logical level, a cloud

provider with every security certification still can't guarantee the integrity

of specific servers, applications, and networks, if your applications are

poorly written, set up and secured.

Here's where the IT Pros remain squarely in control and critical to cloud

success. All the security practices of a cloud provider are meaningless if a

customer organization's security practices are weak.

FACT:

MYTH:

The essence of cloud services is flexibility. One application may call

another on a different cloud service, and data may be stored anywhere,

including your own network, but still be accessible to cloud applications.

No cloud provider offers a service that completely takes control of your

environment. The best cloud solutions will be a combination of on and

off-premise services.

FACT:

“My organization will

be locked into one

vendor and lose

control of its data, if it

moves to the cloud.”

MYTH:

MYTH BUSTERNO. 2DATA CONTROL

“My company must move all its applications to a cloud

service to be able to benefit fully from cloud computing.”

Moving an entire datacenter to the cloud is nearly impossible. Nor is it

recommended by any cloud provider. Start by identifying applications in your

pipeline that can benefit your organization by being in the cloud. Look for

applications where resources are used intensely for a short period each

month then left idle for the rest of the time, or applications where a

moderate level of resources are used continuously, but experience periods of

very high activity.

These applications are good cloud candidates, because the cloud can scale

up and down resources on demand. The cloud is built for flexible access to

resources that can be allocated to other applications, or even other

customers, when idle.

FACT:

MYTH:MYTH BUSTER NO. 3COSTSAVINGS

PRIVATE

MYTH BUSTERNO. 4PRIVATE CLOUD

Your company can benefit from a private cloud. The points to remember when

talking to business management about a private cloud is that you still own

everything: hardware, software and, even uptime management accountability. This

means you have to manage the infrastructure and the capacity requirements to

meet internal SLAs just as you do today. An on-premise private cloud is still a

CapEx expense, in contrast to cloud assets operated by a provider like Microsoft.

To realize the benefits of a private cloud, the projected savings from the increased

utilization of your existing infrastructure must outweigh the incremental cost of

building that cloud. An alternative is to opt for a hosted private cloud, in which a

hosting provider maintains the hardware; it allows you to cut your capital

spending and move it to Opex.

FACT:

My company can

get all the

benefits of cloud

computing with

a ‘private’ cloud

running on our

own hardware.

MYTH:

MYTH BUSTERNO. 5JOB SECURITY

“If my organization deploys Microsoft Online Services

my role as an Exchange Administrator goes away.”

The role of the Exchange Administrator does not become obsolete due to

the cloud. There are still many tasks that remain on-premise. You still

have to manage your users and their mailboxes. Industry-specific data

retention compliance, as well as implementing custom workflows, is still

your responsibility.

While some tasks may no longer reside on-premise, managed cloud

services free up your time to engage in more strategic roles, providing

you with new opportunities.

FACT:

MYTH:

MYTH BUSTERNO. 6IT ROLE CHANGES

IT Pros become more essential to their organizations when opting to use

public cloud services like Windows Azure. Windows Azure facilitates

moving some applications off-premise to the cloud. But, apart from

patching those servers and physically maintaining them, all other aspects

of managing applications remain in the IT Pro's hands.

Monitoring, updating, integration with services such as Active Directory,

security and network monitoring - these task are still required within

organizations utilizing cloud services

FACT:

If my organization uses

a public cloud service

like Windows Azure my

role becomes less

technical.”

MYTH:

MYTH BUSTERNO. 7VIRTUAL MACHINE = CLOUD

“If I'm running applications or network services on

virtual machines, I'm already doing cloud computing.”

Just having VMs doesn't mean you have launched a cloud computing

environment. Yes, you are on the road to cloud computing, but are

not yet reaping the full benefits. A VM must provide the ability to

grow or shrink ‘compute and storage capacity’ on the fly in order to

deliver service comparable to a cloud computing resource.

You also need to have the ability to provide pay-as-you-go pricing to

the departments in your organization to approach the cost-savings

afforded by the cloud's on-demand services

FACT:

MYTH:

MYTH BUSTERNO. 8CLOUD TYPES

There are many types of cloud. For example, a "customer cloud", is a

private cloud hosted on-premise. A "partner cloud" is another variation of

the private cloud that is hosted by an outsource partner.

Finally, the "public cloud," a loosely connected network of web and

application services, is the most discussed variation of cloud computing,

yet it involves a level of service that no providers actually deliver today.

What IT Pros must take into account as they consider any cloud service is

the availability of standard and familiar protocols and application stacks.

FACT:

There is only one

kind of "cloud."

MYTH:

MYTH BUSTERNO. 9INTEGRATION

Integration issues go away when applications

are outsourced to the cloud.

No. IT teams dedicated to application compatibility and

integration play a big role for their organizations, just as they did

before the cloud. While some stand-alone applications can be

moved independent of other existing systems, many will require

integration with on-premise as well as other cloud applications.

FACT:

MYTH:

MYTH BUSTERNO. 10BENEFACTORS OF THE CLOUD

The benefits of cloud computing apply equally to all

businesses. Many companies are making big bets on the cloud

today. Microsoft itself has 40 million users of its Online

Services, including large and small organizations. Also, 10,000

corporate customers are using Windows Azure, such as 3M,

Siemens and T-Systems.

FACT:

Only a small business can

gain any cost savings

benefit out of Cloud

Computing.

MYTH:

MYTH BUSTERNO. 11GETTING STARTED

All you need is your credit card to start cloud computing.

You can begin using cloud computing services with just a credit card. This is

a good way to get experience with this new frontier of services. Most cloud

services provide an environment designed for getting started and

developing applications. In most cases, the cloud providers offer a ‘Getting

Started’ level of resource for free. Microsoft does, for example.

FACT:

MYTH:

MYTH BUSTERNO. 12JOB OUTLOOK

Organizations may look at the cloud as an opportunity to save on hardware and

software costs. However, any potential savings are jeopardized by the elimination of

the IT Pro’s role. There will still be a demand for skills in the security space, network

management, integration skills, Active Directory and infrastructure management.

The IT Pro’s role will evolve as the availability of compute cycles and networked

storage increase – that is a given, just as the IT role has evolved in the past. The

question IT Pros must ask themselves is, ‘am I prepared to play a more strategic role

in my organization?’

FACT:

The IT Pro’s

role goes away

with cloud

computing.

MYTH:

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