Tethered: Cloud Reluctance and the Challenge of Intelligent Integration

This is the first of three entries in a Cleo blog series exploring what is driving cloud growth today and the “state of the cloud” for modern businesses. Part Two explores cloud drivers and the real promise of global agility, and Part Three takes a deep dive into the idea that not all clouds are created equal.

Cloud computing has ushered in an age of comprehensive business agility by facilitating a move away from conventional IT models to one in which businesses can leverage economies of scale in order to realize increased performance, flexibility, scalability, cost savings, and disaster responsiveness.

Yet, despite the many benefits of cloud adoption, a number of businesses remain reliant on physical deployments and are adamant about keeping the bedrock of their traditional IT infrastructure tethered on premises. So the question is – why?

Amongst other things, the cloud has been compared to a public utility. In this analogy, cloud resistors would continue to pump groundwater from privately owned wells rather than join their cloud-customer neighbors enjoying self-determined access to the town reservoir. Strong proponents of cloud computing find this choice to remain out of the virtual landscape oddly pedestrian. However, turning on the cloud insinuates a vastly heightened intricacy in both action and outcome when compared with simply twisting the handle on a metaphorical kitchen faucet. And this complexity is where many of the perceived barriers originate when it comes to embracing the cloud.

Cloud reluctance is no longer just about security. Instead, the rapid migration of enterprise systems to cloud-based solutions and services has signaled an evolution in the calibration of business strategy and information technology architecture. In other words, the real challenge, and the basis of much disinclination from decision makers, is integration.

In considering migration of any IT asset to the cloud, business leaders need to start placing a lot more emphasis on intelligent cloud integration in order to:

• Optimize asset migration and data flows
• Protect business continuity
• Ensure governance and auditability
• Monitor and measure capacity and consumption
• Guarantee clear access and visibility

Thus, if a company decides to wait, hoping to verify the final outcome of this latest IT paradigm shift, it will remain difficult to command any of the advantages offered through cloud services. On the other hand, legacy business and technological process limitations no longer excuse keeping everything on premise. A weak capacity for independent integration should no longer act as an impediment to navigating even net new capabilities to the cloud. The risks of cloud adoption can be decisively mitigated with the right cloud integration solution allowing companies to begin untethering their traditional infrastructure.