One of the things that need re-engineering in the deployment of cloud computing  is that I find that often times the thought of  how it fits into an organization seems to be incongruent with the methods in which traditional applications get procured in an organization.  I say re-engineering because what this introduces is a departure from the standard mentality of application deployment.

Traditionally, this has been addressed in a fairly consistent manner.  The general traditional track means: an application platform is proposed and identified, then physical and network systems are provisioned, application is put into place, and finally put into production.  That’s extremely high-level and grazes over many important details and the time to get to that final stage usually months.  Often there are other internal considerations such as a company’s preferred vendor, determining fit into their architecture and support ramifications, available space, and so on.

What’s different about cloud computing or at least in this example where we would guide the target company’s application deployment into a platform service (such as Rackspace Cloud), is the abstraction from this traditional process.  The cost and complexity of purchase, management, and delivery of the various hardware and software underlying the service is removed from the equation.  That represents a distinct shift in how a company thinks about getting a technology adopted.  This is arguably similar to managed hosting services, but there are many distinctions which would warrant many other articles on that topic alone.

How willing organizations are in re-thinking and taking advantage of this change determines who is on board with adopting these technologies.  In a broader sense, focus must be put on the message of the advantages this change of process provides and that must be put forth by the leaders in this industry.    Part of this is marketing, part of it is good press, word of mouth, and part of it is resolving those lingering questions that we continue to hear today.  In time these things will disseminate into the technology culture, but there is potential that there may be segments in the market that will be slow to change without a clear message in place.  We stand in the midst of a revolution, that requires an evolution of thought for the masses.