Non-Technical Cloud Barriers Series

Over the last four years working in the Cloud IaaS arena, I have come to the realization that many of the “Barriers” Organizations face when moving to a Cloud IaaS platforms (like Amazon Web Services) have less and less  to do with technical issues but more to do with what I like to call “Non-Technical Cloud Barriers.”  Cloud platform providers have made technological leaps over the last 6 years that have resolved the majority of the Cloud technical limitations for industry specific clients (i.e. Banking, Government, Healthcare, etc).  Additionally, cloud vendors, like AWS, have made it a priority to provide industry compliant cloud platforms that meet the following certifications/compliance:

• SOC 1/SSAE 16/ISAE 3402
• SOC 2
•  FISMA, DIACAP, and FedRAMP
•  PCI DSS Level 1
• ISO 27001
• International Traffic In Arms Compliance
• FIPS 140-2
• HIPAA
• CSA
• MPAA

Now that the IaaS Cloud platforms have matured from a technology perspective, the “Non-Technical Cloud Barriers” have become a focal point of the Cloud funnel.   These “Non-Technical Cloud Barriers” can account for Cloud IaaS project stalling and endless meeting loops that tend to spin out of control.  Some of these barriers include, but are not limited to:

• How do organizations procure cloud services in a non-friendly, pay as you go model (i.e. firm fixed price model)?
• How do organizations justify going to an IaaS cloud platform when they just bought new Hardware for their organization?  What do they do with their old hardware and datacenter?
• The Cloud is less secure  than my own datacenter
• If we move to the cloud and we don’t have our own datacenter then is my job going away? 
• Traditional infrastructure vendors adapting to organizations wanting to move to cloud computing.
• Overall lack of education on Cloud computing
• General fear of Cloud computing solutions
• How do I change our IT organizational processes (Change Management, IT governance, approval process, lifecycle…) to Cloud computing model?
• Overwhelmed by the “end solution” and missing sight of low hanging fruit (Quick wins).

The purpose of this blog series is to address these “Non Technical Cloud Barriers” and provide organizations looking to move to IaaS Cloud platform the information necessary to remove and/or mitigate these Non-Technical roadblocks before they become significant impacts on their migration to IaaS Cloud Platform.  The first article in the series will be released in May and will address the following topic; “How do organizations justify going to an IaaS cloud platform when they just bought new Hardware for their organization?  What do they do with their old hardware and datacenter?”

James Hirmas is the CEO for JHC Technology.  He can be reached at jhirmas(at)jhctechnology.com, @JHC_JamesHirmas, or connect with him on LinkedIn.