How will cloud computing affect business models of existing
enterprise computing vendors?

The impact of cloud use and associated business models will be profound on existing enterprise computing vendors. More so than open source software and software as a service (SaaS), cloud computing has the potential to change the very nature of what a traditional enterprise IT vendor is and does.

The business solutions and process values become the focal point of how IT is used and consumed in the coming era, making the “how” less critical as an acquisition criteria than the “what.” It’s quite possible that in the not too distant future the buyers of IT applications, services, solutions and processes won’t ever know what underlying platforms, systems, and technologies are involved. When you rent a car from Avis, do you know what is running their servers, or what tools went into creating the applications? Should you?

IT vendors will become the picks and shovels of cloud solutions, regardless of their physical locations, inside and outside the enterprise. Businesses will purchase solutions, including packaged cloud implementations inside their firewalls, perhaps managed and refined from yet anther ecology of solutions providers. This is a very different business from buy, license, install, integrate, support/maintain, and upgrade, etc.

What are the types of projects that will move to the hybrid cloud/on
premise model?

There will need to be a new methodology for assessments and costs-benefits analysis to address the question, because it will vary greatly. In fact, the way in which enterprises evaluate and implement the division between external cloud and internal IT resources will go a long way to determining their success as a business entity. Make the decisions wrongly, and it could crater the company. Make the decisions very well and it could provide both highest ability to meet business and customer demands — but at the lowest cost with the least complexity.

Doing cloud “correctly” can make or break a company, so it can’t be taken lightly. Each company, given its history, reality and goals, will need to precisely factor how they acquire and deliver IT functions that support their processes and strategies. There will be a super opportunity for consultants to craft the proven methodologies to determine and refine the right cloud “fit” for any organization.

Who will be the key driver (person) of cloud computing in the
enterprise?

It couldn’t possibly be one person, even in a company of one. This is what makes cloud challenging from specification, transition, governance and maturity perspectives. There are new areas, but we know that cloud effects more than IT, more than management, more than suppliers. It affects the entire organization and the communities that surround it. Like SOA, cloud has great importance because it can affect so much, and provides great challenges for the same reasons.

Suffice to say that cloud drivers will need to be both top-down and bottom-up. The adoption paths will need to be methodically and systemically evaluated and re-evaluated. The winners will be those that can leverage the benefits of the cloud IT approach across as many aspects of the entire business as possible, while managing the challenges on as many levels.

Don’t expect cloud to happen overnight, but expect it to impact the business broadly — for better or worse.

How are enterprises ensuring compliance as they deploy applications
in the cloud?

Governance, security, risk, and automation of control at the required (but not overly required) levels will be essential. Striking the proper balance between cloud push and cloud pull in any organization will also be critical. That said, a centrally managed and server-based IT architecture – even as the location may be variable – offers much greater security, management and automation than client/server and distributed models. A properly architected and introduced cloud IT facility will provide far better and comprehensive compliance. The cloud is the governance ultimately, and that means a strong story for managing risks. That’s why the intelligence and defense communities are closer to cloud than commercial enterprises today.