Question for IT/systems managers

[Gwylan]

I write about cloud computing and have come across a company that assesses an organisation's readiness to move to cloud. This assessment costs £2,800 -which sounds a bit steep to me - but the claim is that this is a lot cheaper than hiring a consultant.

Anybody had experience of this? Have you moved to cloud in a way? If so, how did you decide?

(apologies, this thread is going to be boring to 99% of the board but I know there are quite a few IT people around so I'm interested to hear their answers)

 

[Simster]

I'd love to know which consultant paid for my firm to move over to Salesforce. It has left me a bit underwhelmed in all honesty.

 

[Ninja Elephant]

In other IT related news for IT/Systems managers... If you ever get a call from "IT Pro", "IDG connect" or "Spiceworks", the odds are that the call is coming from a call centre in Brighton. And if you're lucky, you might even be talking to one of NSC's leading lurkers, [MENTION=13591]Keith Patel[/MENTION]

 

[beorhthelm]

i reckon NSC could assess your readiness for free . the most important things to remember about cloud is a) its the latest and greatest, so dont be fooled by hype and b) its largely a return to old methods and models to do IT. so ask yoursef why those methods were rejected before.

yes, im slightly cynical about the cloud. its perfect niche are: start up businessses to avoid the need to invest lots of cash (they dont have) in infrastructure; companies where loads vary considerably through the weeks/months so expensive kit is idle alot; small companies that want to easily outsource their IT or have simple/straigh forward IT requirements. beyond those areas there's strong arguments against the cloud.

 

[Bad Ash]

I write about cloud computing and have come across a company that assesses an organisation's readiness to move to cloud. This assessment costs £2,800 -which sounds a bit steep to me - but the claim is that this is a lot cheaper than hiring a consultant.

That sounds like a consultancy service who don't want to call themselves consultants?!

 

[Badger]

I'd love to know which consultant paid for my firm to move over to Salesforce. It has left me a bit underwhelmed in all honesty.

Salesforce is WANK for developers, it's hideous to navigate around and as responsive as running through treacle. For some reason sales types seem to think it's wonderful.

 

[Curious Orange]

The only question you need to ask yourself when considering cloud computing is this "How important is availability to my business?"

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

yes, im slightly cynical about the cloud. its perfect niche are: start up businessses to avoid the need to invest lots of cash (they dont have) in infrastructure; companies where loads vary considerably through the weeks/months so expensive kit is idle alot; small companies that want to easily outsource their IT or have simple/straigh forward IT requirements. beyond those areas there's strong arguments against the cloud.

There are also different definitions of the Cloud (it is the current sales buzz word) - they could simply be proposing taking existing applications and putting the back-end on their servers, where you may be imagining browser front-ends for all your applications.

What type of applications do you use and do you envisage carrying on with them or replacing them (as per SalesForce) ?

 

[Another Berkshire Seagull]

Doesn't answer the original assesment question, but I do a lot of work with Windows Azure and customers onboarding and developing for the cloud but I had to comment based on other responses

When the first releases came out it was very much seen as a start-ups thing. Now whether it be for compute or storage I am seeing many organisations realising that they have to change their mindset to save money. When speaking to customers now I find it hard not to find areas where Windows Azure can save them money and in most cases provide agility to their organisation that they never witnessed before through on-premise IT.

For developers Azure has a great story, albeit sometimes with a slight mindset switch to ensure that the cheapest options are found to suit applications. The world is slowly changing...

 

[Springal]

I loved Salesforce, but we moved away from it due to cost.

In terms of 'the cloud', it depends what you are wanting to do. We have built 'private clouds' for people, but also helped people deploy onto shared infrastructure through AWS or similar.

 

[Simster]

I loved Salesforce, but we moved away from it due to cost.

I don't agree that it is simply wank. If you can build what you need out using it's standard objects page, then all well and good. But the Apex code is a bit of a minefield, and I have issues with it. For example, a couple of months ago I needed to build out a trigger and a module, but trying to upload it from a sandbox after changing the object model proved horrendous because
a) I had a circular reference issue - I couldn't amend the object because it broke existing Apex code, but couldn't amend the Apex code because it referenced fields not in the objects. I had to build interim "false" versions of the Apex simply to upload the code, and was at work til midnight getting it done
b) Salesforce insist your code is 75% unit tested. This is fine, but a recent requirement meaning that 70% of our code was in place before this requirement was in place. Salesforce wouldn't allow me to upload a module until all prior Apex code had unit tests installed!

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

I don't agree that it is simply wank. If you can build what you need out using it's standard objects page, then all well and good. But the Apex code is a bit of a minefield, and I have issues with it. For example, a couple of months ago I needed to build out a trigger and a module, but trying to upload it from a sandbox after changing the object model proved horrendous because
a) I had a circular reference issue - I couldn't amend the object because it broke existing Apex code, but couldn't amend the Apex code because it referenced fields not in the objects. I had to build interim "false" versions of the Apex simply to upload the code, and was at work til midnight getting it done
b) Salesforce insist your code is 75% unit tested. This is fine, but a recent requirement meaning that 70% of our code was in place before this requirement was in place. Salesforce wouldn't allow me to upload a module until all prior Apex code had unit tests installed!

I've read that three times. Most entertaining, what language was it?

 

[Simster]

I've read that three times. Most entertaining, what language was it?

I sympathise. I'm trying to take an interest in Le Tour, but it's another language on the cycling geeks thread.

 

[The Fifth Column]

I don't agree that it is simply wank. If you can build what you need out using it's standard objects page, then all well and good. But the Apex code is a bit of a minefield, and I have issues with it. For example, a couple of months ago I needed to build out a trigger and a module, but trying to upload it from a sandbox after changing the object model proved horrendous because
a) I had a circular reference issue - I couldn't amend the object because it broke existing Apex code, but couldn't amend the Apex code because it referenced fields not in the objects. I had to build interim "false" versions of the Apex simply to upload the code, and was at work til midnight getting it done
b) Salesforce insist your code is 75% unit tested. This is fine, but a recent requirement meaning that 70% of our code was in place before this requirement was in place. Salesforce wouldn't allow me to upload a module until all prior Apex code had unit tests installed!

Congrats on posting one of the most undecipherable pieces of gobbledegook in NSC history. I like clouds though, they are great - Noctilucent ones are my favourites and they are formed at extremely high altitudes, they look spectacular at sunrise and sunset. Another good looking cloud is the Altocumulus lenticularis which I have never seen personally but would like to as it looks as if it has been manmade and sculpted in the air.

 

[Lethargic]

Salesforce seems to be one of the better cloud offerings but back to the original question.
To me that is a very low price but I previously worked as a consultant at EMC so I would say that, they preach that moving to cloud is a journey not an overnight decision and on that they are right. The problem with any cloud conversation is you need to remove the marketing bull and find out what the customer actually wants and why/if cloud is right. Its no the be all and end all its just another tool in the IT armoury.
Cloud has been created as a new way of selling IT in reality its just the natural progressing of IT but its not 1 size fits all like salesmen would like you to believe, there are a raft of questions to be answers. I suspect the company that will do that assessment have a personal agenda in getting you onto the cloud bandwagon.

 

[binky]

I don't agree that it is simply wank. If you can build what you need out using it's standard objects page, then all well and good. But the Apex code is a bit of a minefield, and I have issues with it. For example, a couple of months ago I needed to build out a trigger and a module, but trying to upload it from a sandbox after changing the object model proved horrendous because
a) I had a circular reference issue - I couldn't amend the object because it broke existing Apex code, but couldn't amend the Apex code because it referenced fields not in the objects. I had to build interim "false" versions of the Apex simply to upload the code, and was at work til midnight getting it done
b) Salesforce insist your code is 75% unit tested. This is fine, but a recent requirement meaning that 70% of our code was in place before this requirement was in place. Salesforce wouldn't allow me to upload a module until all prior Apex code had unit tests installed!

Congrats on posting one of the most undecipherable pieces of gobbledegook in NSC history. I like clouds though, they are great - Noctilucent ones are my favourites and they are formed at extremely high altitudes, they look spectacular at sunrise and sunset. Another good looking cloud is the Altocumulus lenticularis which I have never seen personally but would like to as it looks as if it has been manmade and sculpted in the air.

I understood it, and I'm completely normal...
Oh wait...

 

[Gwylan]

Thanks for the responses (I'm going to PM some of you) - some really good answers. I'm trying to get a sample of the assessment from the company concerned to see if it's money for old rope.

As for the question whether cloud is just the latest thing, there are two ways to look at it. Yes, it is but then so was the Internet once but would any company these days question whether they should be on the web? They wouldn't but 15 years ago, you genuinely found companies who thought the Internet was a fad and had no future.

I agree with ABS and Lethargic: if you're looking to move to cloud, you have to look at other processes as well, both technical and business processes. That's what the people selling the assessment tool are trying to get at but I'm not sure such complexity can be handled by a simple test.

 

[binky]

I write about cloud computing and have come across a company that assesses an organisation's readiness to move to cloud. This assessment costs £2,800 -which sounds a bit steep to me - but the claim is that this is a lot cheaper than hiring a consultant.

Anybody had experience of this? Have you moved to cloud in a way? If so, how did you decide?

(apologies, this thread is going to be boring to 99% of the board but I know there are quite a few IT people around so I'm interested to hear their answers)

Cloud computing is merely a buzzword phrase which covers a myriad of different technology solutions.
Each solution will be, or can be tailored to a specific problem or set of problems you are looking to solve.

At it's simplest, you can look at cloud computing as being the buying of computer services, as opposed to buying in the capability to provide those services yourself.
In the same way that you would buy an ice cream, rather than invest in the purchase and maintenance of an ice cream making machine.
Ultimately though, if you have a need to ensure the quality and availability of your favourite ice cream, and also need to be confident that nobody has licked your ice cream, or completeley stolen it, then having your own ice cream machine provides a lot of peace of mind.

The field is vast, because the phrase is fuzzy.
A lot depends on the size of the organisation.
I would be confident of offering good advice to a SME of maybe 50 employees. The likelyhood is that their IT requirements are small, and easily mapped. A complete evaluation, spanning business, data, and solution architectures would be possible.

The idea that you could understand and evaluate any larger organization for the price of a basic rack server is beyond parody.

This looks like a scheme designed to take money from unsuspecting small businesses.

 

[Simster]

Oh and this is absolute drivel:

Anyone who has used salesforce in anything like batch a process will know what I mean.

 

[kano]

The cloud is a con to move people onto an endless monthly payment model. I'd much prefer to have the flexibilty of owning everything I run outright when I look at the budget for the year.

If you go in make sure you know how your going to get your data out again and avoid the inevitable technology lock-in.