Cloud Computing special report

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A Rare Opportunity

It's funny how quickly things change. Just six months ago, cloud technology was regarded with suspicion in many quarters, outside the vendors touting their cloud offerings. Privately, many people told me they were on the fence-some viewed it as nothing more than the natural evolution or resurrection of the application service provider (ASP) model, while others didn't quite understand-or didn't want to understand-what it offered. Equally, there were some who could see its benefits, and as we near the end of 2011, it's safe to say that cloud education and research have made that attitude more prevalent.

The most important thing to consider when deploying a cloud-based infrastructure is whether or not you have a strategy in place. Ignore multi-tenancy setups, data warehouses, elastic computing capabilities and a lot of other impressive-sounding, but ultimately inconsequential, buzzwords. The key question you need to consider is: Do you know what you want? It might be a painful transitional process for those used to full control over the geographical residency of their data, and in-house IT departments that can be summoned with a simple phone call (we wish). But the sheer power, cost benefit and flexibility that cloud provides can only be fully realized if you crouch, touch, pause, and fully engage.

Cloud is more than just a passing fad-it has the ability to provide an epochal shift in the way that information technology is used and consumed in financial services and the business world as a whole. Getting in on the ground floor gives firms a chance to shape its development on a fundamental level, and that's a rare opportunity.

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