Cloud computing issues have a familiar ring to them

eWeek's Howard Cohen reports that cloud adoption is running into some problems in enterprises, and the tone of these issues has a familiar ring to to them.

He quotes Greg Onoprijenko, president of e-ternity Business Continuity Consultants:

“Education is always a big one, because people in general are still trying to wrap themselves up on cloud. They don’t know what they don’t know, so we’re spending a lot of time educating customers on just exactly what it means because there’s still a lot of confusion around what cloud is.”

Educating the business to clear up confusion about cloud services parallels the travails seen over the past decade seen by proponents of service oriented architecture. The issues that embroiled many IT managers and enterprise architects regarding service governance and sharing are now part of the cloud. There are also additional concerns that extend beyond traditional SOA, such as security and reliability about services coming from outside providers. But the solutions are the same -- good governance that provides accountability and puts the business in charge of these efforts.

And keep things simple. As Cohen points out, “cloud computing is simply an alternative way to deliver IT services. There’s nothing mysterious about it... Users can focus on doing what they do for their business and leave the IT to someone else."  Remember also, that IT could still be run somewhere in the same enterprise.