Page 98 - How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Cant Afford to Be Left Behind

MANA GEMENT STRATEGIES F O R THE CL OUD R EV OL UTION

economic justification to support its implementation. But be-
yond the software professionals, there are many other potential
internal users of this new resource. Frequently, line managers
and business analysts, who understand the transactions and
business processes that drive the company, lack the means of
analyzing those processes from the data that they produce. If

they had that analysis on a rapid basis for time periods that
they chose to define, such as a surge in a seasonal product,
then they would be able to design new business processes and
services based on the results.
By giving priority to such work, the private cloud could
apportion resources in a more elastic manner than its prede-
cessor data center filled with legacy systems. The many sepa-

rate parts of the traditional data center had their own work to
do; few were available for reassignment on a temporary basis.
Or the private cloud could monitor the company’s Web site,
and when it’s in danger of being overloaded, assign more re-
sources to it rather than lose potential customers through
turned-away or timed-out visitors.
Once a portion of the data center has been “pooled” and
starts to be managed in a cloudlike manner, its example may
bring more advocates to the fore, arguing that they too should

have access to cloud-style resources. It might sound as if the
private cloud is a prospect that remains far off in the future,
but virtualization of the data center, as noted in the previous
chapter, is already well under way. Such virtualization lays the
groundwork for the move to a private cloud.
As cloud computing grows in importance in the economy,
top management will ask if it is possible to achieve internally

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