Cloud Computing: Principles and Paradigms

Chapter 2. MIGRATING INTO A CLOUD

T. S. MOHAN

INTRODUCTION

The promise of cloud computing has raised the IT expectations of small and medium enterprises beyond measure. Large companies are deeply debating it. Cloud computing is a disruptive model of IT whose innovation is part technology and part business model—in short a "disruptive techno-commercial model" of IT. This tutorial chapter focuses on the key issues and associated dilemmas faced by decision makers, architects, and systems managers in trying to understand and leverage cloud computing for their IT needs. Questions asked and discussed in this chapter include: when and how to migrate one's application into a cloud; what part or component of the IT application to migrate into a cloud and what not to migrate into a cloud; what kind of customers really benefit from migrating their IT into the cloud; and so on. We describe the key factors underlying each of the above questions and share a Seven-Step Model of Migration into the Cloud.

Cloud computing has been a hotly debated and discussed topic amongst IT professionals and researchers both in the industry and in academia. There are intense discussions on several blogs, in Web sites, and in several research efforts [1–4]. This also resulted in several entrepreneurial efforts to help leverage and migrate into the cloud given the myriad issues, challenges, benefits, and limitations and lack of comprehensive understanding of what cloud computing can do. On the one hand, there were ...