Page 149 - How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Cant Afford to Be Left Behind

IT REORG ANIZES

cloud services; and by other cloud service providers. The
regular Dell organization will take what Norrod’s unit has
learned about cloud server design and use it to build servers
for its corporate customers. When a company asks what Dell
recommends for cloud servers, his Data Center Solutions
group will have several proven designs as talking points.

If your company isn’t one of those that are past kicking the
tires, there are several ways in which an IT organization can
anticipate the move to cloud computing before the business
as a whole is fully committed to making the shift. There need
be no subterfuge or passive resistance to other goals in such
a move. On the contrary, the underlying goal of cloud com-
puting is to provide a more flexible, manageable computing

architecture with which the company can meet the challenges
of the future.
To move in the right direction, regardless of whether the
CEO and other members of top management have set goals
and objectives, the IT staff needs to anticipate the change and
build up the required skills and practices. It may do this in
collaboration with business users in the ranks who need re-
sources and may or may not realize that those resources are
available through a cloudlike approach.

If the IT staff can position the company for a transition, it
will come to be viewed less as an anchor that is dragging against
future progress and more as a change agent that is helping the
company meet the future. If the cloud pattern of computing
proves to be a more flexible and economical approach, it will
evolve into the general-purpose business platform. If IT is to
play a consequential role in getting the company to the cloud,

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