The new move to private clouds

In a recent E-Commerce Times article, Jeff Kaplan raises the question of whether or not the move some companies have recently made to create private clouds under their own corporate roofs makes good business sense.

In the article, Kaplan makes some good points about deploying private clouds. I agree with him that conventional (a.k.a. “in the box”) IT departments might not be able to make the transition to the full services-oriented paradigm, which Kaplan is correct in assessing as “… not just a way of architecting systems and software.”

Cloud computing -- whether third party or private -- is certainly going to require a much more significant change in thought process and service orientation; much like the transition from the glass-house mainframe to today’s on-demand architectures.

An issue that we consistently hear raised as a “problem” with taking the cloud computing route is security. In particular, the security of sensitive data on another company’s hardware, which is potentially exposed to that third-party’s nosy employees, and security of the information in transit between “us” and “them.”

This is where the private cloud might come into its own. Management and business units can feel confident that their information is not going to be subjected to the tender mercies of a data center in an often unknown offshore location.

Security and information risk should not be materially affected if and when the enterprise chooses to deploy a private cloud model. Provided, of course, the enterprise already has a good security framework and an active program to assess the inherent risks associated with the use of information technology.

To see Kaplan's thoughts, have a look at the full article.