Is 2010 the year for cloud computing
Is 2010 the year for cloud computing
By Carol Ko | Feb 8, 2010
0 comments
Facebook
LinkedIn
Delicious
Digg
Email
PrintAfter all the hype in 2009, CIOs have been getting more serious about the cloud, whether using it as a flexible communications tool or as a large scale infrastructure overhaul implemented across the board. But what are the critical requirements to maximize the value of any cloud computing?
Commissioned by F5 Networks, Frost & Sullivan conducted an online Application Delivery Survey in the fourth quarter of 2009 to gather opinions from 300 CIOs across six different countries in the A-Pac region, including Hong Kong, China, Singapore, South Korea, India and Australia.
On January 26, nine Hong Kong CIOs conferred at the Island Shangri-la to exchange their latest thoughts on cloud computing. Apart from gaining exclusive review of Frost & Sullivan’s survey findings, they shared with each other the lessons learned in the last 12 months, what they perceived as the major benefits and pitfalls of the cloud, and how they put forward “cloud computing” to the Board as a justified business case.
Different shades of ‘cloud’
According to the Frost & Sullivan’s survey report, “While enterprise perception towards cloud computing as a business enabler was encouraging, cloud computing as a technology remained fairly vague to the majority of enterprises surveyed.”
As the roundtable opened, one telco industry CIO expressed concern about the lack of consensus on the definition of cloud computing. “How do you define ‘cloud’? Is it still pretty much Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)—an infrastructure on demand?,” asked John Eyres, CSL Hong Kong, Business Operations & IT head of strategy and change. “There’s a growing idea of how we can buy “cloud” in the last six years. But many are unclear of what exactly the “cloud” is.”
“When reviewing any solution for the company nowadays, we aren’t really concerned about whether the technology is cloud-based, but we’re certainly interested in learning about the different criteria companies use for vendor selection, and how they measure the success of it,” said Sidney Hui, VP, Group IT & Business Planning Development, Contempo. With 400 employees working in 18 offices worldwide, the Hong Kong-based apparel trading company is currently looking at deploying hi-definition video conferencing to streamline its communication processes.
Manuel Fernandez, group CTO of Li & Fung Group, is cautious of which vendor and solution to pick and choose for their infrastructure, as he requires a super level of scalability. He said, “Our offices grow and shrink all the time. For example, in our Bangladesh office, there are more than 5 times the number of staff members today over 2 years ago.”
Erik Giesa, VP of Product Management, F5 Networks, preferred the term “cloud-like architecture” because “there is no reasonable definition of ‘cloud computing’ today.” “More often than not, it all depends upon the customer, he said. “It could be a mashup, could be Software-as-a-Service, could be the use of a third-party as a platform, or it could be the design of cloud-like architecture in their own premises.” According to Giesa, cloud computing is basically an architecture built upon server virtualization that abstracts the hardware, such that data can be moved around from datacenter A to datacenter B, for instance.
Paul Liu, manager & department head, IT, Chong Hing Bank, said the bank is now working on terminal services (aka remote desktop services) mainly for the purposes of searching and data mining. “We’re also trying different configurations of cloud computing to test for different results,” he said.
Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, which operates about 25 high-end hotels worldwide, has been expanding quickly the last few years with an enviable 150 construction sites on the globe. Raju M Daryanani, VP of IT Infrastructure and Information Security for the group, said every hotel within the enterprise has a replica of all the global systems to run locally, and the approach is thought to be “brilliant in terms of resilience.” It’s an increasingly complicated world, Daryanani said, but “with pressure on the business, we have to keep an eye on what’s happening around in the market.”
Byron Hou, head of IT Asia Pacific, Cushman & Wakefield Worldwide, said the US-based real estate company has had a new CIO for about a year, and is trying to move towards a centralized approach by adopting a cloud strategy. “Before embarking on cloud computing, however, it is important to define the business and IT objectives,” he said. “Virtualization or cloud are IT tools to achieve those objectives. For instance, do we want to outsource commoditized IT services or do we want to improve business application continuity? What are the risk concerns and exit strategy? Then, we may formulate the right strategy for the company, such as server virtualization, or whether to go for private or public cloud.”
“Cloud is an interesting topic for us. We have been deploying our IT services through Citrix for the last 10 years,” said Avi Raju, CIO, Savills (Hong Kong). “We’ve met challenges though, the deployment of cloud computing technology in some developing economies is difficult if you don’t have the infrastructure and the capability that you can leverage. In new developing economies, in theory, you can remotely deploy it [cloud computing technology], but in reality it just doesn’t work. The capability is not there.”
Raymond Chu, head of IT, Hong Kong Housing Authority, said the government department has not been adopting cloud computing at large, but he was planning to look into the possibility of deploying private cloud for less mission-critical services as they are thought to be easier to manage. According to Chu, the three major criteria for considering cloud computing from the perspective of the government are scalability, fast delivery, and an appropriate service level agreement (SLA).
Data security concerns
Not surprisingly, the Frost & Sullivan survey report confirmed that data security remained as the biggest concern of most CIOs towards cloud computing, with more than half (55.3%) of the respondents considering “security concerns (i.e. data security)” as the main shortfall of cloud computing, followed by “lesser control/ownership” of data and assets (31%). According to Frost & Sullivan, “the security mentality towards cloud computing was probably triggered by enterprises wanting to be more careful before exposing their networks to the perils associated with the public cloud.”
Kwok Suk-wah, CIO of AON Hong Kong, said 2010 is the implementation year of cloud computing for the international insurance firm, as their global CTO led AON to embark on cloud computing since he came on board two years ago. But she said there are many issues to be solved along the way, such as data security in China.
She continued, “We must ask our selected vendors to resolve such issues to ensure that their systems are practical. You’ll find that even the vendors might not have thought about the problems. As we’re talking about global implementation, one critical success factor is to select vendors who have sufficient manpower and financial resources, and mostly the commitment to address the issues and remove the obstacles to ensure that their cloud computing solutions work in China.”
“I think one of the lessons is that if you try to solve all the issues before you start cloud computing, you’ll never start,” said Kwok. “In Aon’s case our new global CTO has the energy and willingness to take risks as we adopt change, and he’s led AON to move to a new technology direction.”
For multinationals in Asia, CIOs are not only wary about compliance with the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance in Hong Kong, which regulates the use of personal data by public and private sector organizations—when considering cloud computing adoption, they’re also mindful of the laws and regulations that govern data usage in different countries. For example, the laws about data usage have been rather restrictive in Australia and in some European countries, according to Hou. As for Daryanani from Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, “We operate hotels in Europe and Vietnam where there are strict data privacy laws, so for us to take cloud out of the doors is a challenge.”
Where’s the exit?
As CIOs virtualize more of their data storage to third-party service providers through cloud services, their concerns about data ownership mounts accordingly. In the Frost & Sullivan survey, when CIOs were asked about the shortfalls of ‘cloud computing,’ as many as 31% of the respondents indicated the concern of “lesser control/ownership” once they adopted cloud services.
“When we pick a cloud system,” said Hui from Contempo, “I always ask the vendor ‘Is there an exit strategy? Can I jump from one to another cloud?’ WebEx is a prime example of cloud service, it’s the easiest to subscribe and attribute.”
“But if we use Salesforce.com, and if the data is going to reside there for two years, would you be concerned about a possible conflict of interest, as there might be data leakage to a direct competitor? For example, if both Li and Fung and Contempo use the same vendor for cloud storage, how will the vendor segregate our data?” Hui said it’s essential for the vendor to have a methodology in place to export data so the client can jump to his own data application or switch to another service provider easily.
“Switching costs today are high,” said the Housing Authority’s Raymond Chu in agreement of Hui. “Once they take over my assets, it’s like getting married to the vendor. Being a responsible person for an enterprise, I don’t believe we can run everything on the cloud. When considering whether to adopt cloud services, it’s important for me to be able to switch from one partner to another easily, and data can easily move from one to another service provider.”
Kwok is more positive about cloud computing. “It’s about bringing in agility and elasticity to your IT department and the business it serves,” she said. “Everybody says they’re doing something unique. But in fact there is more commonality to them instead—and that where the cost-savings come from.”
“People think that if you outsource, you lose control of your data and assets,” she said. “I’ve been using this home-cleaning analogy to explain to others how we should approach cloud computing. Say that you’re considering whether to hire a cleaning lady to clean your windows or to do it yourself. You’ll soon realize that the cleaning lady can do the job five times faster and better than you do. But then you also worry about your valuables might be stolen. Like hiring a cleaning lady, there are many privacy and security concerns of adopting cloud computing, and yet these third-parties do the job much cheaper and cleaner than if you do it yourself. Don’t discard the idea—instead, take necessary precautions,” concluded Kwok.
Please leave us your valuable comments
Login or Sign Up (free)