Informatica Perspectives

There's been no shortage of excitement about "cloud computing" - the idea that applications, databases and even entire data centers can be managed by someone else somewhere else, and be accessed online on an as-needed basis. Instead of maintaining complex software or systems that need constant maintenance and upgrades, a company could theoretically "rent" processing power, through the cloud, from service providers, only paying an incremental fee based on usage.

Major systems and applications vendors have announced cloud-computing initiatives, and leading analyst firm Gartner has named cloud computing - along with green IT and social-computing platforms - among technologies that are "poised to reach broad enterprise adoption in the next two to five years." Cloud computing is also known as Software as a Service and on-demand computing.

However, while cloud computing hands off many of the aches and pains associated with systems and application development and management to someone else, this does not relieve enterprises of the requirements and responsibilities around effectively managing enterprise data. Many observers, in fact, are concerned about the implications of cloud computing on enterprise data management and integration, since much of the processing and storage of information shifts to outside providers.

For example, cloud computing - which everyone suddenly seems to want - puts new strains on enterprises and vendors alike. A new study from Saugatuck Technology states that users want SaaS throughout the enterprise, whether their enterprises are ready for it or not, and whether vendors are ready to deliver it or not. The study, based on interviews with 400 executives and 30 SaaS solution provider and independent software vendors, finds that while users are increasingly demanding and expecting SaaS versions of everything from email to ERP, they often don't understand the technological and organizational resource constraints to enterprise-wide cloud computing.

And cloud computing does nothing to solve tricky data integration problems that companies may be wrestling with. Todd Biske, a practicing enterprise architect and former industry consultant, recently observed that cloud-based systems do not do the hard integration work - that's still up to the enterprise. He put it well when he pointed out "if an organization chooses Salesforce.com CRM on demand instead of SAP or Oracle CRM deployed within their firewall, does anything really change? Yes, there's no doubt that there are potential benefits as far as getting CRM up and running goes, but then what? In the enterprises I've worked with, the bulk of the projects were not about implementing some new vendor package. Some of that was always occurring, but there was plenty more that was about integration, enhancements, and other development activities."

Will these integration issues dampen the enthusiasm around cloud computing? In my next post 'Cloud Computing' is Ready for Enterprise Prime Time, But… (Part 2), I talk to Informatica's Chris Boorman and Ron Papas about how enterprises should handle integration issues.