Ryan Nichols
Part of what I do on a day-to-day basis is educate business people who are interested in learning more about cloud computing. One executive asked me a great question last week that I wanted to share with the community.
After learning the basics of Software-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service, and Infrastructure-as-a-Service, he inquired, “This is interesting, but what questions should I use to spur the right conversation with my CIO about cloud computing? And which real-life examples will keep that conversation from getting academic?”
It was a great request, because too often I think we’re focusing on the wrong questions about cloud computing. Today most of the questions around the cloud center on security, reliability and performance. Those are important questions – things that every enterprise needs to be completely satisfied with to make the move to the cloud — but those conversations need to happen in the context of what the business can do with the cloud.
So here are five questions that have been useful in our work helping business and IT work together to “think big” about cloud computing. I’ve picked one real-life case study for each question from my experience working with clients at Appirio, but would love learn more about other examples (or counter-examples!) in the comments below:
