Ten Truths of True Clouds

1) Cloud Computing is Not a Technology

2) Cloud Computing is Bought, Not Sold

3) Cloud Computing Means Opportunity, not Constraint

4) True Clouds Have No Hard Edges

5) Enterprise Clouds Enable Customization Without Unproductive Complexity

6) Clouds Create Shared Truth

7) Clouds Can Be Safe

8) The Cloud is a Multi-Vendor, Multi-Product Marketplace

9) The Cloud is a Proven Proposition

10) The Cloud is a Necessity, not an Option

1) Cloud Computing is Not a Technology

• Cloud computing uses new technologies and new models of software construction to enable radical economies and create new competitive roles for IT
• The business benefits, not the tools that create them, should be the focus of the discussion

2) Cloud Computing is Bought, Not Sold

• Customers want business function, not a portfolio of IT hardware and software; owning and operating technology is an activity, not an accomplishment
• If it doesn't reduce the need for excessive capital spending, and slash the time required to realize value from IT efforts, it's not cloud computing
• If a vendor's "cloud computing" strategy looks like just another way to sell hardware and software, the label is being misused

3) Cloud Computing Means Opportunity, not Constraint

• Cloud computing doesn't need to replace, or duplicate, the things you're using now that do what you want
• A broad array of data integration services let the cloud unlock huge latent value from IT assets already on hand
• Developers can build and deploy new cloud-based applications, far more quickly than with outdated client-server tools, to make more strategic use of existing information resources

4) True Clouds Have No Hard Edges

• Cloud computing should approach the ideal of instantaneous availability of infinite capacity to meet new needs and rise to unique opportunities
• Capacity that's no longer needed should no longer create customer costs
• Experiments should be cheap to try, inexpensive to kill, and rapidly scalable to production if they succeed

5) Enterprise Clouds Enable Customization Without Unproductive Complexity

• A cloud computing offering should massively share the parts of the system whose differentiation doesn't bring benefits (for example, everyone wants the best security they can get)
• Multi-tenant, metadata-based software design should enable complete customization of application function and appearance, without compromising the massive core economies that the cloud should be expected to provide

6) Clouds Create Shared Truth

• The legacy of client-server computing has been a wild proliferation of inconsistent and ungovernable information assets and business processes
• Cloud computing makes it easier for team members all over the world to work in consistent ways from consistent information – and to know who has changed what, when

7) Clouds Can Be Safe

• The discipline and massive scale of the cloud make it easier to apply (and afford) the world's best security technologies and the highly skilled, rigorously certified teams that are needed to make them work correctly
• Clouds can enable rigorous, real-time management of information privileges—and audit histories of information-related actions—on an individual basis

8) The Cloud is a Multi-Vendor, Multi-Product Marketplace

• It's not necessary, or even desirable, to choose a single vendor for all cloud services
• Most of the interesting applications of the cloud draw on the diverse strengths of infrastructure, platform, and application service providers to enable construction of strategic systems at high speed; with low risk; at a predictable cost
• Broad expertise is available from large and small integration partners to build unique systems from proven services

9) The Cloud is a Proven Proposition

• Small and medium companies find that the cloud gives them enterprise capability at an affordable price
• Global enterprises are adopting the cloud to restore the agility they need to meet new competitive challenges
• Enterprise cloud service providers like salesforce.com have a decade of proven ability to deliver reliable service at an extraordinary pace of innovation

10) The Cloud is a Necessity, not an Option

• Studies by Nucleus Research and Galorath Inc. find the Force.com platform from salesforce.com enabling five-fold acceleration of custom application development, with major reductions of overall project cost
• Benchmarking studies by enterprise CIOs, like Geir Ramleth at Bechtel, find global cloud services like salesforce.com, Amazon Web Services and Google slashing basic costs of IT operations by as much as 97%
• Within three years, companies that are not using the cloud will be carrying a potentially crippling burden of higher IT costs and slower response to a rapidly changing marketplace

The list above makes no specific mention of any particular technology used to achieve the model of the cloud. Technologies come and go, but business objectives of superior time to value and superior return on investment endure. A cloud computing strategy should be a plan to achieve new value, not a plan to acquire new IT.

It's clear that even the most aggressive purveyors of fear, uncertainty and doubt about the cloud are merely engaged in a holding action: that inside the next three years, clouds will dominate new IT investments, as they may in fact be doing already.

The most important truth, therefore, may be this: now is the time to be building the skills, developing the partner ecosystems, and creating momentum of culture and practice to use the cloud at enterprise strength – tomorrow, if not today.

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