In the world of IT, cloud computing is just another word for outsourcing. And what everyone needs to understand is that we have done this before. We have seen this before.
In the 1990's, outsourcing was in the form of companies firing their own in-house IT staff and allowing another company to send their people in to run the show. In some cases, if the outsourcing company did not have staff in that area, the customer company would fire their staff and the outsourcing company would then hire them at reduced wages and benefits. So, quite literally, you would go to the same place and do the same job but someone else signed your paycheck and you made less. Either way the customer company now had a staff that was far less responsive to their needs - or even downright contemptuous of them.
In 2003 or so outsourcing was called "offshoring" and everyone sent everything to India. Most of you have been around at least that long so I shouldn't have to explain how this worked out.
Today, we have cloud computing. Same tactic (e.g. "Give your stuff to us and we'll run it for you!") different name. Before jumping headlong into the cloud, there are some points to consider:
1. Cost. For most of the people I have seen on this forum, you are fed up because IT seems to cost so much. There are three possibilites: First, you have an unrealistic grasp on what IT should cost. Second, your IT support charges to much. And third, you overspent drastically on hardware/software on initial purchase. Will the cloud save you money? Very possible. But on the other hand, wouldn't you be better off to purchase equipment that is more to your needs? A $3,000 Dell server can run AC for a 3 doc practice and 2 dozen employees quite easily. At that point, you may as well get SBS 2011 along with Exchange and have everything. And that $3,000 server should last you 4 - 5 years. What will AC in the cloud cost every month? How much money will this really save? What about your other servers (if you have any)?
2. Leverage. My boss knows how hard I am working to keep his stuff going. If I can't keep our three terminal servers, Exchange 2010 server, domain controller, storage server, sharepoint server, SQL Server, and web server going to our client's expectations then I'm looking down the mouth of unemployement. How much leverage do you have over the cloud company? Most likely, AC will sub-contract out the job of actually hosting the servers to some third-party. If, heaven forbid, something goes wrong, will that cloud provider be able to bring you up right away? If that cloud provider has 4 fortune 500 companies and several little solodocmom's or Bert's, who are they going to bring back up first? What would you do if you were the cloud guy?
3. Service Level Agreement. Will you have a SLA with the cloud guy whereby they guarantee you that you are not down more than x amount of time or they pay you money to help you recover your losses? If you are down for 2 days, for example, can you handle that? Say you are paying the cloud guy $500 a month to host your stuff. If you are down two days in a 31 day month, that means you get refunded $32.25. Will that cover your losses? What about the overtime you'll have to pay to get data entry caught up?
4. Agility. Cloud guys trot agility as their ability to bring more processors/servers online for your needs on-demand then scale them back as needed. The agility I discuss is the agility for you to get on or off the cloud as you need too. If you decide to go with a cloud provider, how much downtime and work is involved in getting your stuff to them? How about the reverse. What if you want your stuff back? Will the cloud provider be accomodating? Will it be as simple as buying a server and the cloud guys sending you your AC database on a DVD? How much downtime is involved to make this transition? Cost?
5. Say you want to leave AC altogether because the company is heading in a direction you simply cannot follow. It could happen - notice how some are just up in arms about the whole PM thing. If your database is sitting in some datacenter 2 - 3 time zones away, how do you get your data back? With AC sitting in your office on your own server, you can always hire someone like me to export your stuff from the SQL Server database for you. However, if your data is on somoene else's server, you are completely at their mercy.
6. Competence. Will the cloud provider have a few awesome people like Indy working for them, or a bunch of n00bs they got on the cheap?
These are all things to think about. For some of you, I am convinced the cloud is the way to go. You can't find good IT support and you can't do it yourself, so you need someone. For those of you who do have good IT support or you have a Bert or Indy on your staff, I'm not so sure the cloud is a good idea.
It's all up to you to decide. But ask the hard questions and be honest about the answers.
As for Jonathan Bertman's post that said this:
Currently we are in the final stages of evaluating the security, ease-of-use, performance, and affordability of offering a single, turn-key, hosted service. Stay tuned for more on Amazing Charts in the Cloud, our hosted SaaSy service.
Allow me to provide my interpretation:
We need to find a way to host AC for you. Most of you buy the cheapest pieces of sheet you can find for computers, have no idea how to set them up youselves, yet you expect them to run like cadillacs. Then, when they break, you call us to solve your network problems for you for free. If we host AC for you, and you call saying it isn't working, all we have to do is log on to your hosted server to make sure it's working and then throw the situation back on you to fix that network you put togther on the cheap using duct-tape and crazy glue. Hosting AC for you gives us a clear line of demarcation to get out of providing free, and expensive, network support for problems that have nothing to do with AC. And we can make a few more bucks off you, to boot.
JamesNT
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