The Cloud: What’s Holding You Back?

Cloud computing may be one of the least clear terms in the IT industry, as many still struggle to get their heads around what it means. While definitions from IT professionals, for example, include hosted environments, wide-scale synchronization of data and of computers, anything-as-a-service (XaaS), distributed computing and virtualization, top-level management may have different interpretations of "cloud" than the data center manager.

However, the move to the cloud is indeed happening. There are multiple impacts of cloud migration including new skills sets, a new approach to security, a cultural change within the entire IT organization and, sometimes, new business models. Also, migrating to the cloud should trigger organizational analysis to find new ways to leverage the opportunities presented by this new platform. Data center managers can guide these discussions, helping to align the technology to the business.

Read more in The Cloud: What's Holding You Back?– from the June issue of Data Center Management Magazine, which is the print publication of AFCOM. The article is a free preview (registration required) from the magazine, which is available to AFCOM members.

We will be presenting more articles from the Data Center Management Magazine June edition throughout this month.