The recession hit businesses hard, and IT executives found themselves under a microscope. After decades of growth in both computing capabilities and budgets, the thinking went, surely some cuts could be made. In response, staffing levels were cut and spending was delayed. But many also found savings in the emerging cloud computing and storage capabilities now on the market.

Now, as the recession begins to fade, IT purse strings are loosening. But the old in-house infrastructure foundations have been shaken by as-a-service platforms, and we are unlikely ever to return. Non-core IT assets are rapidly moving to outside providers of managed services, with in-house resources focused on the most sensitive and critical information areas. In short, the "do more with less" demand of the recession is leading to a new focus on IT efficiency.

Differing Application Demands

Many have criticized cloud services for assumed deficits in the areas of control, security, and availability. Some of these criticisms are certainly correct, since data does indeed flow over the public internet and rest in the data centers of an outside party. But not all IT applications are created equal, and thus not all have the same requirements.

It would be difficult to run a relational database on a cloud storage platform and it would be irresponsible to run payment processing on a PCI non-compliant cloud compute service. But it is equally foolish to dismiss these systems out of hand for so many of the other applications found in modern IT shops. Why build out a massive compute infrastructure for occasional log file processing? Why buy and operate rack after rack of storage capacity to hold archival data? These applications and many others are easily moved to cloud services, and the money and time saved can quickly be re-applied to more-critical IT elements.

Cloud Non-Starters

The quickest way to select applications for public cloud services is to eliminate those that don’t fit. Although there are workarounds that can make many of these work, the following attributes should be seen as warning signs that lower-hanging fruit resides elsewhere:

• Mission-critical applications can be placed in the cloud, but it is wiser to start with less-sensitive systems. Startups and from-scratch applications can make use of cloud platforms, but conventional apps aren’t the right choice.
• High data throughput between local and remote locations can be difficult to achieve over the Internet. Some vendors do offer private connectivity for increased performance, however.
• Compliance requirements, including certifications and assessments, are rarely met by cloud vendors. Some vendors do offer PCI, SAS-70, SOX, HIPAA, and European data privacy compliance, but most do not.
• Conventional or legacy systems are not normally capable of running effectively on cloud infrastructure. Many older applications expect dedicated resources and will react unpredictably to network latency and virtualized servers.

Note that all of these "non-starter" qualifiers can be overcome by clever service providers. Indeed, it is possible to run just about any application or service on cloud infrastructure, and many cloud vendors differentiate themselves with answers to these objections. But, given the wide variety of applications to choose from, early cloud service adoption should focus on simpler-to-implement systems.

Cloud Slam Dunks

Although compliance and performance can limit which applications can be moved to the cloud, others just seem made for service providers. Consider the following common applications for a simple implementation and quick ROI:

• Packaged applications like payroll, CRM, and analytics are a great fit for software-as-a-service; in fact, they really don’t belong in-house anymore.
• Data repositories, including email archiving and media vaults work well on cloud storage platforms. These were the first cloud storage applications, and all of the concerns about performance and security have long since been addressed.
• Non-critical test systems can often make use of cloud servers, saving valuable data center real estate and operations resources for production use.
• Collaboration systems can be difficult to implement inside the firewall so make perfect sense for the cloud. Cloud servers and storage is programmable using open Internet standards and simple APIs as well.

The recession forced many businesses to consider cloud services for financial reasons, but the post-recession recovery will see them stay with the cloud as other business benefits are realized.IT organizations that focus on their core mission and farm out non-core systems to service providers will thrive in this new business world.