About the vehemence...

I’ve been thinking more about the Kusnetzky-post and my earlier comments posted on ZDNet and as a post on In Max Mind.

What is the vehemence really about?

Is it so that technicians know something about security, availability, consequences that the management level doesn’t know or understand? If so; please tell us. Also tell the cloud technicians so they can build good, secure, reliable and available services.

Is it so that technicians don’t want to kill their darlings? No, or at least I want to think a modern technician don’t have problem doing that. Technicians are normally eager to find the best solution. And todays technician are skilled to give and take help from colleagues, update and read knowledge bases etc to find a fast, good and the best solution to an issue or need.

At the same time; are the management level too eager to save money and doesn’t see the problem integrations and federation might cause, also the talent of orchestration it takes provide services from different sources or vendors. On top of this the concerns about security.

But really, why would companies like IBM and Microsoft go for the cloud if it wasn’t good? Because of Google? Don’t think so. Google is very much a threat to them. But nor Google, Microsoft or IBM are fools, nor the people working there. Of course they will do the very best, like the IT department, to bring good IT-services to their customers. And they are quite competent companies…

I think you as an IT department should think about cloud as one way of delivering good IT services to your business. Not the only way but definitely one way. You have to adopt the ones suiting your business even if you could build it yourself. There will be a break between IT departments and management level if IT departments only plays defense. The management level will always win and might choose the wrong (a non-suitable) cloud service if the IT department doesn’t act as advisors and take responsibility.

As I commented to the Kusnetzky-post; the CIO role is so important. CIO’s should be given a strong position in the C-series. The management group should give the best support to the CIO. Also the IT department should give the very best support to the CIO. Trim the processes to find the best and fastest way to benchmark and qualify services to your solution.

I wouldn’t feel comfortable if letting the management team buy services. The management team know how to make business. The IT department should support them in this and bring IT to the best value (price, quality, availability). Start adopting when it’s good.