Pixar has an entertaining video you can see as part of the movie Up, called Partly Cloudy.
Google’s Dan Dodge makes a good point for moving some IT services to the cloud. The new term that people need to think about is Partly Cloud Computing. You don’t have to go complete cloud. And no clouds are not good.
Moving to the Cloud is not an all or nothing proposition
The Enterprise Cloud Summit panel at the Interop Conference yesterday discussed some of the challenges and concerns of large enterprises and government agencies in moving their applications to the cloud. While there are some regulatory and compliance concerns for some applications, it isn’t an all or nothing proposition. Moving your email, calendar, spreadsheet, word processor, and other productivity apps to the cloud now can save big money, and free up your IT resources to focus on more strategic issues.
InformationWeek says “The vendors argued that cloud computing offers enough real benefits at the present time that most organizations should at least consider it for some functions. One approach, said Google's Don Dodge, is to move low-level data and services to the cloud while continuing to maintain sensitive information in-house.
Dodge told New York's CIO Rico Singleton that his cash-strapped state could save $50 to $100 million per year just by moving its 190,000 employees to Google's cloud-based Google Apps desktop applications. "It's not all or nothing," said Dodge. "Take advantage of the cost savings for the simple things," he said.”
CRN’s Channel Web captured the essence of the discussion;
Cloud evangelists from the technology companies led off the keynote extolling the various virtues of the cloud model, fromGoogle developer advocate Don Dodge emphasizing simplicity and cost-savings to Microsoft's Yousef Khalidi, distinguished engineer for Windows Azure, explaining how to leverage public and private cloud models to maximize efficiency for enterprises both public and private.
