The complications of cloud adoption

Cloud computing is seductive. Incredibly so. Reduced capital costs. No more power and cooling of a server closet or data center. High-speed Internet backbones. Outsourced disaster recovery. Advanced edge caching. Deployments are lightning fast, with capacity ramp-ups only a mouse-click away – making the cloud a panacea for Big Data applications.

Cloud computing is scary. Vendors come and vendors go. Failures happen, and they are out of your control. Software is updated, sometimes with your knowledge, sometimes not. You have to take their word for security. And the costs aren’t always lower.

An interesting new study from KPMG, “The Cloud Takes Shape,” digs into the expectations of cloud deployment – and the realities.

According to the study, cloud migration was generally a success. It showed that 33% of senior executives using the cloud said that the implementation, transition and integration costs were too high; 30% cited challenges with data loss and privacy risks; 30% were worried about the loss of control. Also, 26% were worried about the lack of visibility into future demand and associated costs, 26% fretted about the lack of interoperability standards between cloud providers; and 21% were challenged by the risk of intellectual property theft.

There’s a lot more depth in the study, and I encourage you to download and browse through it. (Given that KPMG is a big financial and tax consulting firm, there’s a lot in the report about the tax challenges and opportunities in cloud computing.)

The study concludes,

Our survey finds that the majority of organizations around the world have already begun to adopt some form of cloud (or ‘as-a-service’) technology within their enterprise, and all signs indicate that this is just the beginning; respondents expect to move more business processes to the cloud in the next 18 months, gain more budget for cloud implementation and spend less time building and defending the cloud business case to their leadership. Clearly, the business is becoming more comfortable with the benefits and associated risks that cloud brings.

With experience comes insight. It is not surprising, therefore, that the top cloud-related challenges facing business and IT leaders has evolved from concerns about security and performance capability to instead focus on some of the ‘nuts and bolts’ of cloud implementation. Tactical challenges such as higher than expected implementation costs, integration challenges and loss of control now loom large on the cloud business agenda, demonstrating that – as organizations expand their usage and gain more experience in the cloud – focus tends to turn towards implementation, operational and governance challenges.