Note: Over the next couple of posts I will try to focus on how my organization and others are looking at or planning to utilize some of the emerging technologies.
In a post earlier this year, I made the statement that there is opportunity in crisis. That the current economic conditions could be the catalyst that will enable sharing of resources amongst agencies that would result in improved service delivery and reduced costs. My belief is that this will provide public entities with the capabilities to provide a higher level of service and overall will provide the best return on tax payer dollars. I still believe that this is an important strategy looking forward, but such a quantum leap, as logical as it might sound, will require a tremendous amount of political will. While this should be part of a longer range strategy for many, there are some short term gains along these lines that organizations can start to adopt that could provide some relief. Cloud computing is one such strategy.
Cloud computing encompasses any one or combination of services delivered from the "cloud" software, hardware, or infrastructure. This technology trend is one that I believe can not only free up resources, but might also change the way small and medium organizations approach IT. As an example in my organization, almost 100% of the available time of our analysts are dedicated to maintenance tasks and system support. This resource is fully utilized for these tasks because:
1. we are understaffed and can not hire new resources due to budget constraints,
2. we have some older technology that requires a high level of attention for its care and feeding. While the desire to move away from this technology is present, and the risks of not doing so are understood, there is no capital to initiate a project to replace
3. we do not have any budget to hire help such as consultant, etc.
As a result of our current budget dilemma we have looked at any and all trends and technologies that could save time and money. Cloud computing is one of those technologies that is promising. There are reliability and security issues that must be addressed as part of any contract negotiations (and of course legal must be involved to work through transparency issues and ownership of data), but the list of available applications and services continue to grow as does the customer base. Without increasing our budget or staffing levels it appears that - if we went the cloud route - we could start to free up personnel and fiscal resources that could then be applied to projects that could potentially save us more money and provide a higher level of service to our users.
This is not for everyone and a careful understanding of the risks are necessary before embarking on such a journey, but I believe that cloud computing will be an important technology strategy (in some form) for most IT organizations. I am interested to hear if anyone has taken or is planning on the cloud plunge. Please share you thoughts.
In a post earlier this year, I made the statement that there is opportunity in crisis. That the current economic conditions could be the catalyst that will enable sharing of resources amongst agencies that would result in improved service delivery and reduced costs. My belief is that this will provide public entities with the capabilities to provide a higher level of service and overall will provide the best return on tax payer dollars. I still believe that this is an important strategy looking forward, but such a quantum leap, as logical as it might sound, will require a tremendous amount of political will. While this should be part of a longer range strategy for many, there are some short term gains along these lines that organizations can start to adopt that could provide some relief. Cloud computing is one such strategy.
Cloud computing encompasses any one or combination of services delivered from the "cloud" software, hardware, or infrastructure. This technology trend is one that I believe can not only free up resources, but might also change the way small and medium organizations approach IT. As an example in my organization, almost 100% of the available time of our analysts are dedicated to maintenance tasks and system support. This resource is fully utilized for these tasks because:
1. we are understaffed and can not hire new resources due to budget constraints,
2. we have some older technology that requires a high level of attention for its care and feeding. While the desire to move away from this technology is present, and the risks of not doing so are understood, there is no capital to initiate a project to replace
3. we do not have any budget to hire help such as consultant, etc.
As a result of our current budget dilemma we have looked at any and all trends and technologies that could save time and money. Cloud computing is one of those technologies that is promising. There are reliability and security issues that must be addressed as part of any contract negotiations (and of course legal must be involved to work through transparency issues and ownership of data), but the list of available applications and services continue to grow as does the customer base. Without increasing our budget or staffing levels it appears that - if we went the cloud route - we could start to free up personnel and fiscal resources that could then be applied to projects that could potentially save us more money and provide a higher level of service to our users.
This is not for everyone and a careful understanding of the risks are necessary before embarking on such a journey, but I believe that cloud computing will be an important technology strategy (in some form) for most IT organizations. I am interested to hear if anyone has taken or is planning on the cloud plunge. Please share you thoughts.
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