There are clear signs that 2011 is shaping up to be a big year when it comes to the adoption of cloud computing. That being said, it doesn’t mean that it is all smooth sailing.
The article, "Cloud Adoption Quickens, But Not Without Issues," highlighted that while cloud adoption increased 20% over the past year, so did the concerns around monitoring and troubleshooting. According to the survey, 60% of respondents said they worry that cloud adoption comes at the cost of a decline or lack of improvement in troubleshooting. The study also found that 52% of the network engineers, IT managers and executives said that the monitoring of applications has declined or remained the same.
Most companies can’t afford to throw out years of legacy infrastructure and will have to take an evolutionary approach to building cloud services. This means that to be successful with cloud adoption, IT operations will need to blend legacy resources with new IT services.
If you are in the process of planning your cloud computing strategy, make sure you are also asking yourself how are you going to proactively address concerns around operational support. The cloud may abstract the complexity but behind the scenes there are still physical devices and now virtual layers that need to be monitored and managed to make it all work.
If your customers' expectations aren't being met, it really doesn't matter where your services are located.
Planning from the start will make sure operational concerns aren’t an afterthought that slows down your journey to a successful cloud deployment.
