Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in Your Enterprise: A Step ...

Moving Onward 219
server” crowd, and this is another people issue. Some people refuse to allow
cloud computing because of control issues, no matter what business benefits
you present to them.
Cost means there are some applications and architectural components
(services, processes, and data) that simply make no sense to extend to cloud
computing because there are no direct cost savings or other business benefits.
While you can make a business case for some applications, cloud computing
is almost never cost effective or a good technical fit for all applications. As we
outlined in Chapter 4, “Making the Business Case for Clouds,” you have to do
the business case around cloud computing to justify cloud computing as the
right fit.
However, you will see many startup companies build a significant portion
of their IT architecture on cloud computing platforms, since it is so easy to
justify the use of cloud computing assets when considering the cost benefit for
a startup enterprise. Some startups will place their entire IT infrastructure on
the platform of the clouds, from e-mail to calendaring to databases to enterprise
applications. They will realize huge cost savings by taking this route and
will therefore have a large competitive advantage over their competition.
Considering the advantage that startups will have and that many of those
startups will grow to be large enterprises, it is logical to assume that many
larger companies in the future that leverage cloud computing from the beginning
will continue to be dependent on cloud computing as they become
larger, publicly traded companies. That is just a matter of the evolution of
this technology and the benefits of adoption as a systemic component of the
enterprise architecture or SOA.
Q: Will cost savings continue to be a significant driver for
cloud computing
A: Yes, but it is not the only driver. As we saw in Chapter 4, there can be substantial
cost benefits when leveraging cloud computing, but as we pointed
out, your mileage may vary. You have to consider the cost holistically with
other factors, including strategic benefits that are typically harder to define
but there nonetheless.
It is easy to determine that cloud computing is less expensive than traditional
on-premise computing by simply considering the operating expenses.
The real benefit of cloud computing (or more specifically, SOA