What scares you most about ‘the cloud’?

Cloud computing has gone mainstream. While a hard-core of naysayers still exists, the black-and-white negative viewpoint is a lot less common today than it was a year or two ago. Our research at Freeform Dynamics, including via The Register, says it’s now less about ‘whether’ to use cloud, and more a question of where to adopt …

[nilfs2]

They don't want their toys taken away

I work for a cloud service provider, in most cases the problem we face trying to sell a solution to a customer is that they don't like the idea of someone else doing their job, pretty much like it happened with unions and automation on the manufacturing business, in lots of cases a robot can do a task better than a human being and usually cheaper, the same way that a cloud service can do a task better and usually cheaper than an employee on the payroll.

If you want to sell cloud services, get the CFO or equivalent bean counter involved.

[K]

Re: They don't want their toys taken away

"If you want to sell cloud services, get the CFO or equivalent bean counter involved."

Congratulations, in that single sentence you have managed to captured everything that is wrong with Cloud, and the reason that most fail.

[nilfs2]

2 thumbs down in just a few minutes!

My point is proven, success!!

[K]

Re: 2 thumbs down in just a few minutes!

Your about as bright as a dull light bulb..

[Fatman]

Re: 2 thumbs down in just a few minutes!

Your(sic) about as bright as a dull burnt out light bulb..

FTFY!!!

[Will Godfrey]

@nilfs2

If that really is your job, and you really do act as your wrote, then you are a major part of the problem.

I have no respect at all for sales people who deliberately sideline those that know what they are doing, and take advantage of managers who simply can't be expected to have a full grasp of the ramifications - all to make a quick killing.

[asdf]

sorry to do this

>managers who simply can't be expected to have a full grasp of the ramifications - all to make a quick killing.

He may be a tool but have to take his side on this one. That is not his problem. That is crap management in your company and by some extension your decision to work for said company.

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: sorry to do this

That company was asking for it your honour, they were provocatively incompetent!

Disgusting.

[asdf]

Re: sorry to do this

> they were provocatively incompetent!

Hey if HP is willing to pee away 8 billion without doing due diligence there is plenty of money to be made in that realm. Don't you know with this brave new world the Boomers have created greed is everything, getting paid is always sacred, and ethics are for the stupid and weak.

[asdf]

Re: sorry to do this

Lot of bitter cynical irony in my post not coming through. I totally agree sales should be about helping the customer meet their needs not screwing them over for the record but since Jack Welch (ie Gordon Gekko) and his ilk came along and their words became dogma to the next generation the Boomers, the world is a much different (worse) place.

[Anonymous Coward]

nilfs2 has nailed it.

And a bunch of typical IT innovation prevention officers rush to say how terrible he is. Ironically, the people who complain about nilfs2 post are probably also the ones who will be made redundant by cloud.....the cloud train is coming. Get on it or get under it....

[nilfs2]

Re: nilfs2 has nailed it.

Nailed, bolted and riveted! How long until Silicon Valley looks like Detroit? lol.

[K]

Re: nilfs2 has nailed it.

Cloud is like herpes, ever few months it flares up a little. But its easily treated with some common sense and patience.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: nilfs2 has nailed it.

Oh dear. I hope you have not bet your career on that viewpoint. I fear that unlike herpes, a monthly salary is unlikely to keep coming back.

Thing is, we are only at the beginning of the cloud journey. IaaS still requires people to build, manage & maintain servers. PaaS does not. Companies will be able to get rid of the vast majority of their IT staff. Or at least, get rid of the existing staff and replace them with business enablers rather than change blockers.

[K]

Re: nilfs2 has nailed it.

Sorry, did I say Cloud was like Herpes? What I meant to say was people who preach it are like Herpes, flare up ever now and again.

As for viewpoint, I tend to follow "best tool for the job" and I'm open minded, so if this was PaaS, then I'd use it, but unlike you, I recognise a tool when I see one, I mean I recognise PaaS as a tool in a very large toolbox.

[Crazy Operations Guy]

My biggest fear is that people don't understand what the cloud is

Noting in the article is specific to "the cloud". Those are all issues that were present long before market droids started slapping "Cloud" onto every piece of technology they came across.

The cloud is nothing more than a bunch of VMs stapled together with some management software, nothing special abut that, people were doing it for years. IBM had been selling compute time on a carved up mainframe that was shared between several users. Later, we ended up with slices on the Big Iron where each piece can be moved between pieces of iron with little-to-no down time. Not all that different than what the cloud does now and this was happening the Berlin wall was still up...

[Anonymous Coward]

don't understand mission critical you don't last long

> automation on the manufacturing business

Funny that I develop automation software for a manufacturing business. My company has not and I can almost guarantee will never allow those computers running that automation to be run by some other company. Why? Because the business depends on it. 20+ years of profits every quarter speak for itself. That said like any major company they do I think have some auxiliary stuff out in the cloud.

[GrumpyOldMan]

Re: don't understand mission critical you don't last long

Completely agree. A bean counter wanted to put control systems we build into a well-known cloud provider, but the latency to our on-site controllers was ridiculous, the safety aspects were too horrifying to think about, not going to happen. We built a private SaaS cloud for our internal engineering work but that's it.

[Pascal Monett]

"given the benefits offered and the general direction of the industry"

Benefits offered :

- false sense of availability (when it's down, you can't do anything about it)

- no sense of security (ahem, NSA, National Security Letters, and any effing judge in the kingdom of USA who decides that the world is his oyster)

General Direction of the Industry :

- aka "herd mentality"

- basis of the availability of all those identity hacks and leaks because actual security is hard and listening to marketspeak is soooo much more reassuring than reality

To clarify :

I am quite sure that the Cloud (ie virtual servers managed by someone outside your organization who is not subservient to you) has its benefits.

I am equally certain that business-critical data has nothing to do on the Cloud without proper encryption and security measures implemented by the business without counting on any promises made by the provider.

And there have already been accounts of cloud providers going down in a day because of hack - and your data goes with it.

So, as far as the cloud is concerned, my opinion is to treat it like gambling : only play with what you can afford to lose.

[Anonymous Coward]

Send in the JCB Drivers

Dig a few holes and cut a few cables from this company who has just switched to the Cloud and see what their CEO says then their production line stops dead.

What cost the cloud then?

Come on you Pro-cloud lot explain to us anti-cloud luddites how you are going to fix that one then?

sure you have 99.9999999% uptime but what about that bit of soggy electric string that connectes the customers to all their lovely data?

None of my Clients would even consider moving their main systems into the cloud unless said cloud was on their premises. They need their operation to keep going regardless of the weather, Backhoe drivers or idiot Telecoms pranksters.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Send in the JCB Drivers

My god. The fear in the comments section in this thread is palpable.

WRT to the JCB. What would happen if the power or comms cables to a 'non cloud using company' was dug up? Same deal applies. Apart from cloud vendors probably spent a whole bunch more time planning for that scenario...

[GrumpyOldMan]

Re: Send in the JCB Drivers

Actually had this happen to me on a Friday night about 10 years ago. All contact with the WAN lost, no files coming through, JCB on a building site across the road severed a BT fibre - a 2" multi-core, took out the entire business park for 2 days. The replacement cable ran over-ground, and it's still there cobered in weeds.

[nilfs2]

Re: Send in the JCB Drivers

A backhoe can cut the power lines as well, I guess an on-premise server is useless without power, a backup battery might last enough time to shut everything down, but that's it, and a diesel generator is not something that every company out there has, and if it does, the backhoe driver could steal diesel to keep braking power and communication lines, those lines ain't brakin' themselves!

[Anonymous Coward]

And Pascal. You think that cloud is Cloud 'virtual servers managed by someone outside your organization'

Whoops!

[GrumpyOldMan]

And if they change owner...?

Used to have an account with Humyo as a trial. Servers in the UK. They got bought out by Trend Micro and moved to Germany, and changed all the Ts & Cs. Comply or loose your data. I lost my data - but it was a trial run so no real damage done. Don't trust the public cloud at all.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cloud bubble because

Everyone wants to sell cloud services & no - one wants to buy cloud services.

[nilfs2]

They took'er jewbs!