Three Dirty Little Cloud Secrets

Every overhyped technology has good and bad aspects. The trouble is that few are willing to fill you in on the bad aspects. Doing so is often met with several dozen rounds of being called a hater. Cloud computing is no exception.

Here are the three major cloud computing secrets:

1. Some public cloud computing providers are falling and will fail.

2. Public clouds don't always save you money.

3. Using clouds can get you fired.

[ Get the no-nonsense explanations and advice you need to take real advantage of cloud computing in InfoWorld editors' 21-page Cloud Computing Deep Dive PDF special report. | Stay up on the cloud with InfoWorld's Cloud Computing Report newsletter. ]

Now to the details.

Dirty cloud secret 1: Some public cloud computing providers are falling and will fail. Many of the smaller cloud computing providers are not getting the traction they anticipated and are closing their doors, including some of the older firms. This is largely due to providing a far too tactical solution in a world where strategic solutions are sought. Moreover, newer providers have learned to use other clouds, such as IaaS and PaaS clouds, as their platform, whereas the older providers built their services from scratch and are paying for their own private data center spaces. The new generation of cloud providers based on cheaper back ends is pushing them out of business.

Dirty cloud secret 2: Public clouds don't always save you money. I've covered this topic before. The fact is public clouds are not cheap. If you've already invested in internal infrastructure, public clouds don't always make financial sense. You need to run the numbers.

Dirty cloud secret 3: Using clouds can get you fired. The slowest and weakest in the herd get culled, while some in the lead will take all the arrows. Many of those IT leaders who look to build private clouds or to use public clouds have made huge errors that have hurt the business. A few have been presented with walking papers. At least they have some popular technology experiences on their CV; my belief is that it's better to be an innovator than an adopter.

This article, "3 dirty little cloud computing secrets," originally appeared at InfoWorld.com. Read more of David Linthicum's Cloud Computing blog and track the latest developments in cloud computing at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.

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