Legacy technology vs. cloud computing – finding your competitive advantage
By 2020, businesses failing to pare legacy network architecture may find their core businesses disrupted by companies who have built infrastructure based fully on cloud computing. ”They will be unencumbered by a legacy of complexity and costly solutions and will be narrowly focused on their core competencies,” says Frank Wander, CIO at Guardian Life Insurance Co.
That’s the picture Wander painted during his “State of IT in 2020” presentation at the Computerworld Premier 100 conference this week. Read more here.
What are the take-aways from Wander’s address? Probably first and foremost: businesses need to actively assess their current legacy infrastructure and determine whether they can pare it down. Clearly businesses failing to act will finding themselves dragging around legacy technology that will impact their competitive abilities in the marketplace.
Businesses will need to answer the question: ”how can we best migrate portions – or even our whole infrastructure – to the cloud?” That will require developing a cloud strategy so decision-makers don’t get caught up in immediate demands. What happens when a server – or other major component of the network – needs replacing? Will the company replace it within the same legacy architecture or move that component to the cloud? Having a purposeful cloud strategy will help drive tactical IT decisions, rather than tactical needs driving decision-making.
Will it make better sense for a company to move “in dribs and drabs” – one application or platform at a time – to the cloud or to migrate all or large portions of the infrastructure to the cloud in more of an “all-in” approach? For many companies and even for many IT professionals, determining a cloud strategy will prove difficult because it represents a sort of paradigm shift in the way they approach IT.
The old adage “he who hesitates is lost” seems to apply here. Not that companies should rush headlong into the cloud. But allowing inertia or lack of knowledge to guide or influence your IT decisions in these times will negatively impact your business. Not sure how to proceed? Find a reliable expert to help develop and implement a cloud strategy.