Get some insight on whether cloud computing is right for your business from Santhosh D'Souza, CTO, Sun Microsystems India, who explains more about the cloud model and if it is necessary for businesses to subscribe to it in an interview with CXOtoday.

One instance where an enterprise should seriously consider whether or not to use the cloud involves its dependence on its own IT architecture as a key competitive differentiator. This could be particularly important regarding the speed of a go-to-market strategy, D'Souza says. "Most of the time, such a product or service has to be developed in an IT environment. If IT is your competitive advantage then moving your application to the public cloud might not be the ideal way to go," he says. "You do not have any say in the components that go in the cloud. They are all standard components as provided by the vendor."

Another area of consideration is data integrity and security. If using a public cloud, all the data will be stored in a public infrastructure. Keep in mind that security stored in an IT datacenter is not necessarily safer than in the cloud, D'Souza notes. He explains, "In a cloud model, all of your resources are in virtualized pools. All of your storage appears to be stored in one box. In an enterprise, you cannot get any better security than physical isolation of data pools. Our general observation around security incidents is that most of the data compromises happen due to human error rather than technology. Most incidents occur due to insiders."

In cases of data integrity and security, D'Souza advises businesses to evaluate the criticality of their data and consider it against the guarantees of the cloud vendor they are involving themselves with, especially in terms of security.

Organizations must also keep in mind regulatory and compliance requirements, D'Souza points out, using an example of an India organization restricted from having its data hosted in the U.S. "Since the data needs to be physically stored in India," he relays, "it will prevent the company from going for a cloud computing solution and opt for its own IT infrastructure." Depending on a group's specific regulatory and compliance requirements, it may be necessary to remain on its own IT infrastructure.

Whether these factors apply or not, businesses should also realize that they have more than a public cloud option. Sun can help build private clouds. This provides the option for organizations to take advantage of the cloud computing concepts while maintaining more control over their data, D'Souza offers.

In the interview, D'Souza also shares his thoughts on planning for growth and the computing resources that may be needed in relation to the cloud; how this type of computing addresses security, availability, and scalability particularly for small businesses; administrative overhead; and the pay-per-use model of the cloud versus just buying new hardware.

More Information

The Bedrock of Cloud Computing is Virtualization - D'Souza interview

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Cloud Computing Infrastructure and Architecture [...read more...]

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