Chapter 24. Ten Cloud Dos and Don'ts

In This Chapter

  • Choosing the right starting point

  • Standing on the shoulders of SOA giants

  • Watching your back

  • Being part of a SOA team

We spend most of this book describing the cloud in great detail. In this chapter, we focus on a few simple dos and don'ts.

Don't Be Reactive

Many businesspeople who want to save money fast are tempted to throw out the data center and put all computing into a public cloud. Although this might sound good for a few hours, it isn't a thoughtful approach. In the end, you might decide which capabilities that you should put into the cloud, but you need to do your homework first. For example, do you have compliance issues to consider? What is the difference in cost between a public, private, hybrid, or even a traditional data center? You need to make sure that all the possible impacts have been considered before you spring into action.

Do Consider the Cloud a Financial Issue

You might start looking at some approaches to the cloud that sound really good. But before you jump in, do the math. How large is your company? What's the nature of your computing environment? How many applications do you support? How much does your current environment cost? How much spare capacity do you have in your data center? Are there applications that can cost effectively be moved to a Software as a Service model? Before you do anything, follow the money.

Don't Go It Alone

Although some companies have the sophistication to build their own clouds, they're ...

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