CentraComm's CIO, Patrick Foxhoven: Beating Cloud Lock In

Beating Cloud Lock-In: Our 3 Top Considerations

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By Patrick Foxhoven

"I feel the need... the need for speed." It's not just an iconic '80s movie line anymore. IT groups are flying into the public cloud without escape plans, drawn by rapid provisioning and the ability to get new services up and running in, literally, minutes.

Racing ahead of the pack is fine until you hit turbulence. One CIO we spoke with decided to change providers and asked for his company's data to be returned. It was-weeks later, on disk, in a proprietary format. Yet in our recent InformationWeek Analytics 2010 Cloud Risk Survey of 518 business technology professionals, when we asked those with no plans to use public cloud services about their primary reasons for holding back, just 5% cited the risk of vendor lock-in.

Now, we're not trying to discourage adoption of these services. Six in 10 respondents to that survey are doing, or plan to do, business with a cloud provider. The advantages are too great to ignore, and as a result, these vendors are here to stay. And in fact, we'll highlight some providers that are working to help resolve lock-in concerns. What we are trying to do, however, is ensure that an exit strategy is a standard part of your planning process. In this report, we'll discuss ways to make informed decisions on adopting cloud services so that changing your mind doesn't put your business at risk. (C1480710)