It is undisputed that Cloud is spreading and has recently been the subject of writing the entrance exam, so it is natural that IT executives and business persons want the answer for their questions and alleviate their fears.

I will not address the issue of security. We’ve talked a lot about that here so I will focus on other questions that always arise in these discussions. The first question relates to costs.

Cloud Hosting Solutions actually decreases IT costs?

To answer, we will analyze the differences between cloud and the traditional IT infrastructure. In the current model, the physical resources (dedicated server, storage, etc.) are owned or managed by the IT departments of companies. In general, usage levels are low and a significant portion of the computing capacity is idle. As a result, we have machines and data centers that are not fully used, with consequent high costs per unit of labor. In a virtualized environment, the physical resources are still owned by the company, they are virtualized in multiple logical resources, increasing the level of use and lowering unit labor costs.

Of course there is a difference between private clouds, where the company still owns the resources in “cloudification” and public clouds. A public cloud: its potential for large-scale works, in general, with unit costs far less than those devoted to a single company. A public cloud is the one that best exploits the economies of scale, achieving unit costs per unit of labor that is much lower than other alternatives.

But the result is that, in general, the model of cloud, private or public, tends to offer lower costs than the traditional model.

Another interesting point is a question that arises now and then: “private cloud can be considered as a true cloud?”. One company, to build a private cloud computing needs to invest in assets and software that comprise the intelligence of the cloud layer, which are components that can implement virtualization, standardization and automation. It is also a finite cloud because its limits are the capacity of your data center. It also reduces the fear of entering the cloud, because it operates under the policies and security controls of the company.

Another issue is where to start? There are no ready answers, but to any initiative, cloud is a prerequisite to obtain executive support and budget allocated. After selecting a design proof-of-concept or even an actual implementation. Often a POC can cost as much as a real project, and why not start showing what benefits a cloud can generate with a real project?

The result of a pilot project for successful cloud is evidence of the popular saying “see-to-believe.” It’s amazing to see how a skeptical executive is keen to see it on a portal application and allocation of computing resources in minutes rather than several days in which it is accustomed. One suggestion is the development and testing environment. Often about 50% of IT efforts are spent on these activities. Do not forget that there is a whole process of migration to the cloud, which requires extra effort to maintain interoperability between systems in the cloud environment (public and / or private) and the system is still on-premise. The change is gradual and this coexistence can last for many years.

Another doubt that arises is that, changes must happen in IT to support cloud or not. Cloud is not just a technology, it is a new computational model that changes the rules of IT use, affecting both service providers and IT products as their customers. Therefore it is clear that many processes will be affected, since the producer-consumer relationship (new business models and contracts) to the models and processes of governance is are established in the IT field. So it is absolutely essential to get a skilled cloud.

At the end, cloud is already there. IT departments cannot ignore this trend and should lead the process. The cloud model allows the proliferation of “shadow IT”, these initiatives are triggered by the users without IT involvement. The uncontrolled spread of invisible IT can cause future problems in terms of safety and interoperability. Thus, IT can and should take advantage of the cloud model to be an important actor and transform the IT organization.