When did lawyers become technologists?

The current cloud computing debate centers on whether the Public Cloud can be trusted.  Can IT infrastructure start with a private cloud and migrate later?  The private cloud advocates cite concerns such as security, control and adherence to compliance requirements as their primary reasons for not utilizing the public cloud. Clearly, cloud security is in question. But who should make the decision within your organization?

I was amazed to have an attendee at a major industry conference tell me: “his lawyers would never let him use the public cloud”.  My question was –“when did lawyers become technologists?”

Cloud Paradigm Shift

It is universally recognized that there is a major paradigm shift occurring driven by the new usage based pricing model of Cloud Computing.  Just 5 years ago SaaS was perceived as not being financially viable.  Indeed, the Public Cloud has become one of the primary approaches to utilizing mission critical applications.

CIOs around the world are now including Cloud Computing in their future planning. They are trying to determine which Cloud environments should be adopted that make the most sense for their infrastructure requirements. Leading CIOs are allocating resources to determine the most cost effective and scalable cloud investments.

Cloud Phobias and Facts

The fact is that a lot of the fears regarding public clouds are coming from those who do not understand technology.  It’s important to know the facts.

The largest companies in the industry are investing billions of dollars in creating cloud platforms that include state of the art hardware, networking and security. These companies include IBM, Microsoft, HP, Rackspace and Amazon.

The private clouds cannot possibly invest enough money to remain competitive with the capabilities and security that are available in public clouds. In addition as a result of economies of scale, public clouds are the leaders in establishing and implementing compliance standards.

This is also an industry where it’s really all about the applications and solutions. There will be a far more extensive SaaS application catalogue available for the public cloud than for a portfolio of private clouds all of which have implemented their own custom stack.

Let’s face it,  application developers have always followed the money…