Is Cloud Computing Vaporware?

Is Cloud Computing Vaporware?

Cloud computing is being over-hyped, and enterprises should be wary after high-profile outages at providers such as Amazon cloud services, said analyst firm Ovum.

A raft of IT services offerings have emerged in recent years, including Amazon Web Services, Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Simple Storage Service (S3) along with Google Apps offering and the Salesforce platform-as-a-service product. But Ovum warned companies to avoid using cloud for critical infrastructure.



"A spate of service outages on the Amazon and Google platforms has increased enterprise caution about the reliability of consumer-market-oriented cloud providers."

The cloud creates new management challenges for CIOs, because it runs like an electricity grid. Unlike under an outsourcing deal, where any slip in quality is protected by service level agreements, an outage of a cloud service may not be remedied quickly.