back to article The Network is the Problem: Barriers to cloud adoption

How can cloud computing be a sensible option when it makes you so dependent on the network, and often even the public internet? If the comms slow down, the user experience takes a dive. Lose the link completely, and you’re stuffed. We have been hearing such questions and objections from nay-sayers ever since commercial hosted …

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  1. Pperson

    Tradeoffs...

    Hmm, the more I think about it, the more it seems that cloud vs local is a set of relative risks. For example, we've been through a "centralising crusade" where all the servers got moved centrally and virtualised. On the one hand, overall uptime is higher but on the other hand if things go down then it takes ages for the central guys to respond since we are only one piece of the larger company. Whereas before the problem would be fixed in minutes or even noticed by the local IT guys before I could even log a job. I would guess that 'cloud' solutions will make this tradeoff bigger: even better uptime, but even worse responsiveness/effects if things go wrong.

    Perhaps the focus is too much on the engineering feat involved. That is, 99.9% uptime is only 1% more than 99%, but 10x harder to do (reducing the 'error' from 1% to 0.1%). On the other hand, 5 minutes till a fix is 12x faster than an hour but not a marvel of engineering (just needs someone nearby with admin rights). The former seems to give a CIO much more to boast about, but I know I preferred reasonable uptime with fast responsiveness.

  2. CADmonkey
    Pint

    kor fanx

    if u tekky tipes hadnnt werked it owt id nevva av sussed it

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    God God! Common sense reasoning!

    "How can cloud computing be a sensible option when it makes you so dependent on the network, and often even the public internet? If the comms slow down, the user experience takes a dive. Lose the link completely, and you’re stuffed."

  4. PeterM42
    FAIL

    The cloud blows with the wind (of change)

    From my experience when we went to outsourced network maintenance, I would suggest that the levels of user satisfaction are likely to PLUMMET with cloud computing. Outsourcing companies are (more often than not) not really aware of user uptime requirements. It's bad enough when you are on the LAN with the support guys near enough to kick, but when they are miles away.........

  5. Justin Fielder

    Justin Fielder, CTO, Easynet Global Services

    It comes as little surprise that The Register’s research into cloud adoption confirmed that in a real-life scenario connectivity could act as a barrier to the successful deployment of cloud computing technologies. In fact, in our recent survey of 800 CIOs across Europe, 43% said they would need to update their network if they were to move to the Cloud. However – this left a worrying 57% who were not considering the impact the Cloud could have on their network.

    The Cloud offers the potential to greatly enhance the way in which organisations do business. The levels of efficiency and flexibility it offers are unbelievable, but only when the business has a robust, reliable network to transport data from the source to a user. The number of CIOs currently overlooking the importance of the network is alarming, but also provides a logical reason for the number of faltering Cloud deployments. To give you a parallel example, a retailer with a faulty supply chain is about as much use as a Cloud infrastructure with an out-dated, unreliable network – both have delivery issues.

    Putting all your applications into the Cloud is one thing, but if the network is not up to scratch then the real benefits of the Cloud will never materialise, as end users won’t be able to access the systems, information or data. And if the users cannot benefit from the convenience and flexibility of the Cloud, the business will fail to see the benefits that it expects too.

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