This supplement is an independent publication from Raconteur MediaDecember 2 2009
CLOUD COMPUTING
The private
cloud model
comes of age
How to? When? And why the ´private cloud´ model isyour best bet. Jessica TwentymanreportsBack in the damajorvtle mor
Back in the days when the vastBmajority of organisationsBviewed the IT department as lit-Btle more than a back-office, technicalfunction, a request for a new system orservice could be a long, drawn-outaffair. At many, it still is. That processgoes something like this: A department or team identifies theneed for a new application, becauseemployees don’t have ready access todata they need to perform their day-to-day jobs. A request for a new application isforwarded to the IT department,where managers decide whether ornot to go ahead with the project,depending largely on the amount ofmoney they have left in this year’s ITbudget and the number of requestsalready sitting in their backlog.If their decision is yes, softwarelicences are bought for each employeethat will use the application, alongwith a dedicated database, server andstorage capabilities to run it on. Net-working equipment may also be need-ed to get the application plugged in tothe corporate backbone. This can takeweeks, even months. The final stage, implementation,will vary in length, depending on thetechnical complexity of the applica-tion, the number of users and theamount of training they need to use it.At most organisations, this is meas-ured in months. For many business leaders, that’s nolonger acceptable. Information tech-nology, they say, is a key source ofstrategic value, helping their compa-nies to meet, or even exceed, theirbusiness goals - and the IT departmentneeds to adjust accordingly.The old way of running IT doesn’twork anymore, for three reasons: it’stoo slow, it’s incredibly wasteful, and itdoesn’t scale. It’s too slow, because in the time ittakes the IT department to fulfil arequest, the business need for thatapplication has either increased tosuch an extent that business opera-tions are disrupted - or needs havemoved on entirely. It’s wasteful, because the infrastruc-ture resources that underpin each andevery business application are notContinued on page 3The power of partnershipBuilding a future-proofed cloudinfrastructure involves a meeting ofmindspage 7Journey to the cloudWhy organisations are embarkingon a complex but transformationalvoyagepage 8In safe handsWhy cloud computing could be justwhat data security has been lookingforpage 14Accelerating your journey to private cloud computing - page seven