Building your own cloud is a mistake, says Alexander Mehlhorn, CEO of Framework One.
Certain businesses are eyeing the appeal of cloud computing, but are opting to build their own clouds in their own data centres because they are worried about the loss of control that comes with outsourced cloud services. This is a critical error, according to Mehlhorn.
"Trying to do so negates all of the benefits of true cloud computing," he says. "You're still burdened with the crushing complexity of running a full data centre, and the company will continue to operate like an IT shop even when its core business is something completely different. But mostly, you'll lose out on the mind-numbingly massive scale that you can achieve with cloud computing."
One of the most important benefits of the cloud is this huge scale, explains Mehlhorn. "If you think your data centre is big, imagine hundreds of those stacked end-to-end, replicated across six centres, on three continents, like Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform. Microsoft uses containers filled with servers to build its data centre. Each container contains between 1 800 and 2 500 servers, stacked two high, and a new container can be added to the data centre in under a day."
Five years ago, building an in-house server room was essential, he notes. "You could contract the creation of your IT infrastructure out, but that was costly, and risky too. After all, isn't the IT infrastructure the backbone of any modern large organisation - and can you really trust someone else with it?"
Because IT had become accustomed to having their IT infrastructure on the premises, many have qualms about suddenly outsourcing services to cloud providers. But while on-premise data centres were a comfort for IT, they were "a nightmare for the CTO when it came to operations, scaling, staffing, support, security and the host of other concerns that ensures CTOs never had a good night's sleep".
The sudden change to cloud has made IT wary, but makes perfect sense, emphasises Mehlhorn. "Real hardware is clunky and expensive. It takes up space, generates heat and consumes power. Building redundancy worthy of the name is expensive, involving geographically dispersed data centres. The networking requirements are complex. The security - both physical and virtual - requires constant vigilance. And it really is not the core skillset of most companies," he says.
"What you want is a company that does IT alone taking up this complexity, and delivering a cloud solution that is simple to manage, and lets you get on with your company's core competency."
Cloud computing gives companies the flexibility to be competitive, Mehlhorn concludes, and that's the real benefit of cloud computing. "Reduced cost and complexity is great, but being able to respond in real time to business demands on IT infrastructure, and the competitive advantage that brings to a company - that's what being in the cloud is really about."
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