This is the fifth and last post in a blog series about The Cloud as a Tectonic Shift in IT, authored by Sacha Labourey , CEO, CloudBees. In the series, Sacha examines the huge disruption happening across the IT industry today, looks at the effect the cloud is having on traditional IT concepts and reviews the new IT service and consumption models that have emerged as a result of the cloud. Finally, he makes some predictions about where this tectonic shift will lead us in the future.
The move to the cloud represents one of the largest paradigm shifts to ever affect IT. More than just a simple technology evolution, the cloud fundamentally changes many of the cornerstones on which IT evolved. From redefining the concepts of operating systems and middleware, to revolutionizing the way IT services are built and consumed, the cloud is ushering in an era of change unlike any we have ever seen.
Conclusion: The Cloud is IT's Most Important Tectonic Shift
The cloud represents one of the most significant shifts that computing has gone through. As we move towards the cloud, we will discover a new service-based world, where many words that were once common in the average IT shop – like servers, data centers, OS, middleware and clustering – will get erased.
Much like Google and Facebook were not familiar companies a mere decade ago, the IT landscape is due to radically change in the next five years. New entrants with a cloud pure-play will be much more agile in creating value and won’t face the internal competition that arises during a paradigm shift, protecting their existing revenues while providing a credible, cost-efficient alternative. Think about it this way: List the companies you think of today as the biggest IT players. Wait five years, perform the same exercise and compare your notes. There’s a good chance more than half of the names on that list will be going through hard times and the shift to the cloud and a service-based economy will be the main reasons why.
But IT vendors won’t be the only ones impacted by these changes. The cloud has already helped companies increase their competitiveness today and will play an important role in ensuring it tomorrow. Those who continue to reject cloud solutions as not being flexible, secure or good enough will fail under the weight of their own IT costs and lack of agility. As of today, any company creating new IT assets that does not consider the cloud in some form is increasing the legacy burden that will make their move to the cloud more painful and their business less competitive.
To learn more :
- Get the white paper, to read the complete blog series
- Watch Sacha's presentation, The Cloud as a Tectonic Shift in IT, on video
Onward!
Sacha
Sacha Labourey
CEO
CloudBees
cloudbees.com
The Cloud as a Tectonic Shift in IT:
- Part 1, The Industrialization of IT , Sacha compares the evolution of electricity and its delivery with the evolution of IT. He draws parallels between the instant-on access and pay-as-you-go models in the power industry with the evolution occurring now in IT service delivery.
- Part 2, The Irrelevance of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) , takes a closer look at IaaS, PaaS and SaaS
- Part 3, The Death of Operating Systems (as We Know Them) , discusses how operating systems will evolve under the new IT service paradigms
- Part 4, The Death of Middleware , predicts the impact of PaaS on traditional middleware
- Part 5, Conclusion, the cloud is IT's most tectonic shift