In Investment has preceded usage. Whenever there has been a need to procure hardware, IT managers have kept scalability as a key parameter and procured a shade or reasonably higher available configuration (as much allowed by the budget) as compared to immediate/ current need. More often than not such procurements (done with best intentions) paid off. However, there were also times when such investments became white elephants (if the projected growth in usage didnt happen). But one can now make a choice of using services before paying; with cloud computing around, the usage can surely precede investment.
Typically large business applications have been tied to their dedicated hardware landscape. If there was a need to deploy new large applications, the norm was to have new landscape of hardware to run them. It again meant the whole nine yards (shade higher configuration, fairly long procurement cycle and implementation time). IT was unable to deliver at the speed that it wanted to and at the rate business demanded.
However, with virtualisation technologies, this is a non-issue, as there is no need to procure and setup hardware based on each application. It is much easier and quicker to provision multiple servers on a single hardware box running independent and unique software stacks.
However, one has to be careful while choosing virtualisation or cloud computing for one's needs. Decisions should be made on a project to project basis with proper evaluation criteria ranging from server workload demands, scalability needs (both upwards and downwards), BCP/DR requirements to security risks. Currently there are some challenges that are visualised while using cloud computing security, availability, performance, difficulty in customising cloud, its integration with internal IT and affordability. I am sure these will soon be overcome by cloud service providers.
Finally, telecom has provided phenomenal connectivity with mobility. With fast data exchange speeds the experience of using services is ever improving. Virtualisation provides the much desired dynamic provisioning, scalability with agility to meet ever increasing business demands. Cloud computing brings in elasticity in usage of services allowing pay per use models. Telecom, Virtualisation and Cloud computing together are here to transform IT.
Sunil Sirohi VP, Information Resources Organisation, NIIT Limited. The Author has over 21 years of experience in IT.
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