The cloud changed the way software and servers are procured and deployed. Is it worth risking the familiarity, security, and control that on-premise provides?
Join the DZone community and get the full member experience. Editor’s note: This interview with David Linthicum was recorded for Coding Over Cocktails — a podcast by TORO Cloud. The cloud has changed the way enterprises provision and deploy IT. Although dealing with databases, storage, compute cycles, and other platforms that can be leveraged on-premise still have their place, the cloud has provided a new consumption model that is continuously evolving. For over 20 years, Deloitte Consulting Chief Cloud Strategy Officer and Gigaom Research Analyst David Linthicum has witnessed and documented the evolution of cloud computing. « If you look at what cloud computing is in the way it evolved to be, it’s in essence the ability to configure a data center virtually, » he tells us in an interview for Coding Over Cocktails. While the first generation of cloud computing provided capacity on demand for computing, storage, and networking, the second generation that exists today includes technologies that do not typically exist on-premise, such as machine learning-based systems, serverless computing, and AI. Linthicum says that this evolution is what allows us to leverage technology that back then was unaffordable and unobtainable. « Probably five years ago, the cloud kind of crossed the chasm where they have better technology than we do on premise – whether it’s security, governance, management, or monitoring, » Linthicum explains. He adds that the cloud also makes businesses more efficient and speeds up their processes significantly. « The great thing about the cloud is you can do it in about an hour versus if you’re a traditional enterprise and you have to go through procurement cycles, it’s gonna take six months to a year even for the standard Global 2000 companies. » « In cloud computing, it’s a matter of spending for what you need. It’s a matter of core integration technologies. It’s a matter of layering in different security platforms and doing it so at the speed of need. That’s the revolution of it. » Despite this, some organizations still choose to invest largely in legacy, on-premise systems, while balancing this with the cloud, creating a hybrid cloud setup.
