Successful Introduction of Cloud Computing into Your Organization: A Six-Step Conceptual Model

LITERATURE SURVEY: THE LANDSCAPE OF CLOUD COMPUTING A recent survey on the status, applications, versatilities, popularities, and opportunities gained by using cloud computing platforms reveals interesting facts as follows: Many banks including ING are testing cloud computing for integrating it into their operations. In a survey of 186 banking technology professionals interested in cloud computing 73 percent of the participants indicated that cloud computing will enable them to meet user demands quickly and achieve scale (Crosman, 2010). Morgan Stanley is another major bank that is planning to integrate cloud computing into its operations. However, security and privacy in cloud computing are among the major concerns (Cohen, 2008). Department of Defense (DoD) is exploring the use of cloud computing in one of the following four categories (Anonymous, 2010): * Use commercially provided cloud services * Deploy cloud computing within DoD networks * Develop a multi-agency cloud computing network for data processing and storage * Develop a combined DoD/commercial provider system Key decision makers believe cloud computing will provide greater agility and flexibility for the DoD, today and in the future. Cloud computing will also increase efficiencies and incur marked cost savings during their life-cycles to alleviate some of the pressure of budget reductions. Once again, security and privacy are major concerns for this deployment (Forbes, 2011, Anonymous, 2011). In addition, experts believe that, the department of defense could run more effectively using cloud technologies. DoD could become a model and show other large organizations how cloud computing applications could be used (Linthicum, 2010d). According to experts it makes no sense for smaller enterprises to operate their own data centers. Cloud computing will be both cost effective and also environmentally safer and cleaner for such organizations (Krill, 2010). Cloud computing platforms clearly support the growing phenomenal of green computing and could help organization to achieve their "green" goals. An executive at global consultancy CSC predicts that half of all IT workloads will become cloud services by 2016 (Knorr, 2011). Despite millisecond delays cross-ocean cloud applications are gaining in popularity because of major cost saving and other advantages (Thibodeau, 2011c). President Barack Obama relies heavily on cloud computing and data center consolidation to keep IT costs under control (Thibodeau, 2011b). The Obama administration aims to cut costs by embracing the cloud in place of in-house, proprietary technology (Samson, 2010). A report published in Techland.time.com in February 2011 indicates that YouTube uses cloud computing infrastructure to split video processing between "hundreds of thousands of machines," allowing them to process video seven times faster than in 2008 (and even four times faster than just six months ago) (McMillan, 2011). Tata Communications will offer cloud computing that includes services for computing, data transfer, and storage (Ribeiro, 2010). Joining Microsoft, Oracle, Google and others, IBM plans to offer a cloud-based office suite (Jackson, 2011). IBM also puts Notes and collaboration in the cloud (Knorr, 2010). China is building a city-sized cloud computing and office complex that will include a mega data center. Cloud computing is among the projects supporting that country's double-digit growth in IT spending (Thibodeau, 2011a). BACKGROUND As reviewed in the previous section, cloud computing is one of the fastest area of application within the information systems field. Most computer and networking companies are trying to either enter into this area or increase their existing market share. Even during the economic down turn, cloud computing related jobs have been in high demand (Linthicum, 2010b). …