Informatica World 2008

I was looking at Google Trends yesterday and noticed how the term "cloud computing" is rapidly emerging in our technology vernacular!

I don't know about you, but I've only just come to terms with On-Demand and SaaS (well, I know them pretty well having worked for Salesforce.com for 18 months or so).

On-Demand is exciting and growing in acceptance. Most companies now-a-days are looking at such services. It surprised me to hear from our CIO that we have 13 on-demand services in use at Informatica.

What's clear to me is that the concept of On-Demand has started becoming mainstream. However, large (and medium-sized) enterprises will not be able to run their entire businesses on them for many years to come - if indeed ever. They have their place, yes, but so does traditional computing. The weird thing about On-Demand is that you're placing your trust in someone else to look after your data. You don't know where your data is, but you know it's there, and it's safe (make sure you check to be on the safe side!).

However, you need to make sure you can use it, it's correct and it's adding value to your business. You need to analyze it, and report on it. You need to move it from one system to another - in other words you need data integration. Pretty obvious really, but it seems to me that On-Demand computing cannot succeed in the enterprise without data integration - for all the reasons I've just stated.

So that brings me back to Cloud Computing. What "exactly" is it? Is it everything "outside" the firewall? Is it On-Demand, and Google spreadsheets and Amazon? Is it everything out there - that you can reach but don't physically know where it is?

There doesn't seem to be one simple definition that everyone has agreed upon yet, but, to me the important thing is that Cloud Computing is that it's about further fragmentation of data. It's about the IT infrastructure virtualizing into the clouds. But it's also about keeping our feet on the ground and making sure we can still be in control of "our" data and making sure that we are able to differentiate, innovate and gain a competitive advantage.

To do that you need to be able to access it, move it, clean it and trust it - and that's fundamentally where Informatica comes in. Integrating, moving, synchronizing and cleaning. That's what we do well - whether your data is inside your firewall or spread across the heavens in clouds.

Data integration is important - now more so than ever before.

PS: you might like to take a look at our On-Demand services that provide connectivity from one cloud to the next.