I was reading an article about cloud this morning and I realized that they try to push for rip-and-replace type of an approach to the cloud. I think it is totally wrong. What I believe enterprises should do is a more step-by-step approach. In example;
1- Standardize, consolidate and virtualize infrastructure
2- Standardize management tools and processes
3- Automate, standardize services
4- Aggregate services from many sources
5- Become a service broker
This type of an approach might be a better and easy to track method for an instant-on enterprise. Talking a little bit about the virtualization, it definitely has great value proposition for enterprises. Such as, multiple virtual machines (VMs) per physical servers which provides better utilization of physical assests and reduce costs but do not forget that this might results in a virtual sprawl and greater management complexity. We can easily add or move applications, servers and storage which provides flexiblility and easier scalibality but might end up with complex, interrelated dependencies that often are impossible to track manually and are tricky to troubleshoot. Do not forget what happend to Amazon just couple of weeks ago. Outsourcing all your infrastructure and apps to a cloud service provider, does not solve your challenges. Do not forget that clouds are highly mission critical to both service provider and for consumers.
