You vs. cloud computing

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard the blare of that hypemonster known as cloud computing. The cloud is revolutionizing the way we do IT, cutting costs, increasing efficiency, and making perfect toast every time! Such cheerleading about a field that barely exists is enough to make anyone tune out.

But don’t change the channel quite yet. This is important: The cloud is growing up and it wants you, your infrastructure, and quite possibly your job. Your organization’s management is reading some of the same trade magazines you’re starting to ignore — and the cloud’s promise of better, faster, cheaper IT sounds good to them.

Fortunately, you have an edge: You know it’s coming. Unlike the legions of well-paid software developers who promptly found themselves out of a job after they were outsourced early in the last decade, we in IT at least have had an ample chance to see what’s coming and adapt before it arrives in full force. In reality, the growing prospect of the wholesale outsourcing of much of our infrastructure is an excellent opportunity to up our game and do what we do better.

Why cloud computing is inevitable

Simply put, the cloud will be able to do what your infrastructure does, but cheaper. There is really no way to fight that. Economies of scale dictate that no matter how big you are, someone who is 10 or 100 times bigger will be able to deliver the same infrastructure resources as you but at a lower price point than you can on your own. Whether you’re talking about software licensing, storage, or compute resources, it’s all cheaper when you buy more and build bigger. If you need an example, just look at what Wal-Mart has done to mom-and-pop retail.

Of course, we all know that outsourcing isn’t always the best option. Pretty much everyone has at least heard about major development projects that were outsourced to cheap programming resources only to run many times over the cost of in-house development. In many cases, the failure of outsourced software projects was due to a simple fact often overlooked: Outsourcing is a hell of a lot of work.

If you want an outside company to do anything complicated for you — whether that’s writing a new module for your line of business application or shoveling your entire server, desktop, and storage environment into the cloud — a massive amount of footwork awaits if the level of service is going to resemble what you’d have if you performed it in-house. You can’t expect an outside party to sail in and understand all of your organization’s specific needs without a major effort on your part.

Failure to realize that fact is what caused so many development projects to be outsourced — only to fall flat on their faces and be brought back in house. Nonetheless, that didn’t save a bunch of dedicated software developers from losing their jobs. I think the same cycle of impulsive adoption, corrective action, and eventual permanent replacement will play itself out with the cloud if we’re not careful.

Adapt or die

As the saying goes, the best defense is a good offense. The best thing we in IT can do to head off the specter of rampant over-outsourcing is to reimagine ourselves and our infrastructures as service providers, with our organizations as the only customer. This forces you to take two important steps: sell your value to the organization as if you’re trying to win their business and put a renewed focus on customer service.

In most organizations, IT is viewed as an enormous cost center rather than a value generator. If you allow this perception to fester and grow, the services you provide will be replaced with an (apparently) less expensive cloudsourced version. The only thing you really have to differentiate yourself from the cloud is the unique knowledge you have of your organization and what makes it tick. No amount of outsourcing — to the cloud or otherwise — can replace that. But if you want your organization to understand that, you have to sell it and follow through with providing it on a regular basis.

[ Read Matt Prigge’s “The Real cost of lying about IT infrastructure costs” to see how trust in IT erodes. |  For a different angle entirely, check out Bob Lewis’ “Run IT as a business — why that’s a train wreck waiting to happen.” ]

Customer service is always a touchy subject in IT. Our nearly universal disdain for “users,” while fun to joke about, has caused a deep rift between IT and the rest of the organization. I know of many companies where the prospect of calling the IT help desk is akin to anticipating a trip to the DMV. The DMV can get away with providing poor customer service — it’s part of the government, and short of armed revolution, it can’t be replaced. Neither could IT — until now. Today, the technology really does exist to do everything you do somewhere else. We can no longer afford to be viewed as a necessary evil.

Put yourself in the driver’s seat

Another important thing we can’t ignore is that, as with generalized outsourcing, cloud services will in some cases be the best choice for your organization. Digging in your heels and flatly insisting that IT can always do things better in-house will erode your credibility and make you look defensive — much as the mainframe guys of yesteryear were overtaken the PC. If you proactively beat your management to the punch and start suggesting areas that make business sense to move into the cloud, you’ll put yourself in the driver’s seat and avoid having the cloud jammed down your throat.

No matter what happens with the cloud and IT as a service, I’m thoroughly convinced that if IT is going escape a massively uncomfortable outsourcing purge, we’re going to need to change the way we do business. Start thinking about that now before it’s too late.

This story, “You vs. cloud computing,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Matt Prigge’s Information Overload blog at InfoWorld.com.