To cloud or not to cloud

I guess by now you're used to the term cloud and if you're not: hey don't worry, experts are still uncertain what exactly defines the cloud so you should be good.

What however seems to be inevitable in the IT industry is that you are moving to the cloud, again a lot of discussion about at which exact pace this will be, and probably nobody will know before it really happens, but it is inevitable. 
But do you need to care? And what is the impact? How about the (IT) business partners you work with, will the way you work with them change? Will it impact the way you do business? I guess in a sense the answer to all of the above questions is: Yes!

Obviously one of the main advantages of cloud, and than I mean enterprise software delivered through the cloud or Software-As-A-Service is that you do not have to worry about keeping your software version up-to-date, and you can always benefit from new features added in a short amount of time.

But how about your business, how can it affect the way you do business? Well there's a huge variety of possibilities there, even some that you might not be aware of yet... For instance how internet of things could play a role in your customers purchasing your products and services. Cloud will allow you to react much quicker and probably smoother to changes in digital  than any enterprise software application running in your own datacenter or server farm will ever allow you.

Implementing cloud solutions however requires a quite drastic other approach to elements like developing, maintaining and releasing. One of the buzz-words in that respect is DevOps and without dwelling into the actual definition, what DevOps brings organizations, is the correct combination of people and capabilities required to implement, develop and maintain solutions in one team. Why is this so crucial specifically with cloud? That's simple, as cloud solutions are being implemented and taken into production, the next release of the software is already available in most cases and hence this needs to be validated and put live as soon as possible as well as working on the next sprint of functionality to be taken into production. A faster time-to-market requiring everyone's contribution: administrators, developers, product owners, etc. And of course this impacts the way you work with you IT business partners.

So to summarize by more or less quoting a senior business leader I was listening to just a couple of weeks ago: "Cloud really has impact and we need to take action on it!" So what are you waiting for? Figure out how your business can benefit from the cloud and go for it!