David Linthicum

Cisco Systems has surveyed more than 1,300 IT professionals to determine the top priorities and challenges they face when migrating applications and information to the cloud. Guess what? It's harder, and it takes longer than many thought.

Duh.

The world of cloud computing grows like a weed in summer, and many assumptions are being made that just aren't correct. I've previously exposed four cloud myths you shouldn't believe. Now it's time for me to climb up on my soapbox and correct a few more.

Myth 1: Cloud computing is bringing back vendor lock-in. The notion that using cloud computing features (such as APIs) created by one provider or another causes dreaded lock-in seems to be a common mantra. The reality is that using any technology, except the most primitive, causes some degree of dependency on that technology or its service provider. Cloud providers are no exception.

We love new technology, whether in the form of software or devices, though planning, strategy, and architecture aren't as universally adored. But if you don't understand both, you can count on huge project disasters as you move into the cloud. Unfortunately, far too many in IT are blindly in love with technology, especially as they consider the new-to-them cloud. I see this problem every day, so please heed this friendly warning.

Foundational planning for the use of cloud computing is an architectural problem. You need to consider the enterprise holistically, starting with the applications, data, services, and storage. Understand where it is and what it does.

Back in August, I declared the term "cloud computing" officially meaningless because of its extensive overuse and misuse. No matter what a vendor sold, it was somehow "cloud computing." These days, when somebody wants me to define "cloud computing," I fight the urge to eject them from the conference room. It's so widely defined, and thus so vague, that providing a crisp definition is nearly impossible.

More disturbing, there seems to be an increasing overuse of cloud computing concepts as saviors for all past IT mistakes. Pushing cloud computing as the way to solve all, or even most, computing problems reveals those who make such statements as less than credible.

Recently, InfoWorld's Galen Gruman pointed out that cloud storage is beginning to see productive use -- and IT is not having any of it. After all, why let productivity get in the way of preventing an unlikely security threat?

The culprits are Apple's iCloud, Google Docs, Dropbox, Box.net, and any number of cloud storage systems that provide free or cheap file sharing. Company employees quickly find that using one or two of these services is much easier than dealing with internal IT. Indeed, they may be more aware of the benefit of cloud computing than IT is. There are two primary movers of this.

Big data seems to be all the rage these days. It's big, it's new, it's Hadoop-related, and it's typically in the public cloud. New startups and cloud offerings show up weekly, promising they'll finally get your data issues under control. They all promote the same idea: the migration to huge petabyte databases with almost "unlimited scalability" through the elasticity of the public cloud.

The reality is different than the hype lets on. As organizations try to consolidate their enterprise data into large databases that exist in the public cloud, they may be overlooking a few technical realities.

I watched the new product announcements at CES 2012 with much more interest this year. Why? Because the use of cloud computing has gone from few and far between to pretty much anything and everything. CES 2012 shows that shift in no uncertain terms.

The rise of what I call the retail cloud has been a real mover and shaker the past few years. Today, it's reached critical mass as everything from DVD players to TVs, from car entertainment to alarm clocks, comes with some sort of cloud service to support that device.

Tech jobs are coming back, and cloud computing skills are at the top of the list; a well-placed bet in a cloud computing skill could lead to good paydays in the next few years. However, cloud computing as a term is so overused that you need to be much more specific about your area of focus.

To get rich in the world of cloud computing, you first need to focus on a skill that's in high demand, which is the kind that will pay very well. Second, work for an organization that provides some return on equity around the use of those skills. Typically, that means a hot technology startup or perhaps a small publicly traded technology company that's now moving to the cloud. Wait a few years, sell your stock, move to beach, then repeat.

The new public beta of Cluster Compute Eight Extra Large is Amazon.com's most powerful cloud service yet. Its launch indicates that Amazon Web Services (AWS) intends to attract more organizations into high-performance computing. "AWS's cloud for high-performance computing applications offers the same benefits as it does for other applications: It eliminates the cost and complexity of buying, configuring, and operating in-house compute clusters, according to Amazon," notes the IDG News Service story. The applications include physics simulations, seismic analysis, drug design, genome analysis, aircraft design, and similar CPU-intensive analytics applications

This is a core advantage of cloud computing: the ability to access very expensive computing systems using a self-provisioned and time-shared model. Most organizations can't afford supercomputers, so they choose a rental arrangement. This is not unlike how I had to consume supercomputing services back when I was in college. Certainly the college could not afford a Cray.

Many companies are having great success with cloud computing, and clear that the market continues to grow by leaps and bounds. However, with any new technology plays, there are those projects that do quick face-plants. These paths to failure are also emerging -- and highly avoidable.

Here are three surefire ways to fail with cloud computing, and what you can learn from them to avoid suffering that same fate.

A new study by cloud monitoring provider Opsview finds that more than two thirds of U.K. organizations are worried about something called "cloud sprawl." Cloud sprawl happens when employees deploy cloud computing-based applications without the involvement of their IT department. In the U.S., we call these "rogue clouds," but it looks like this situation is becoming an international issue -- and reflects the same "consumerized IT" trend reflected by the invasion of personal mobile devices into the enterprise in the last 18 months.

Here's my take on this phenomenon: If IT does its job, then those at the department levels won't have to engage cloud providers to solve business problems. I think that most in IT disagree with this, if my speaking engagements are any indication. However, if I were in IT and somebody told me they had to use a cloud-based product to solve a problem because they could no longer wait for IT, I would be more likely to apologize than to tell them they broke some rule. Moreover, I would follow up with guidance and learn how to use the cloud myself more effectively.

Apple's iCloud is coming this fall, and I agree with with my InfoWorld colleague Galen Gruman that we should not be afraid of iCloud. However, this synchronization service could be delivered to an audience that has yet to understand what cloud computing is, let alone know if they should accept it into their homes and offices.

A recent survey from the NDP Group found that just 22 percent of consumers are familiar with the term "cloud computing." The survey discovered some differences between cloud-savvy versus nonsavvy (NDP's categories) consumers. For example, 84 percent of respondents familiar with the concept use cloud-based email, whereas 68 percent who are not familiar with the term nonetheless have their email in the cloud -- they just didn't think of it as the cloud.