Will I lose my job if we move to The Cloud?
This is a very common question - well, not asked as directly as that, but it’s certainly an objection we’ve come up against on a number of occasions when introducing Cloud Computing to an organisation. If, for example, Grove were to provide all your IT services on a cloud computing model and support it - what is the IT Department going to do?
The answer is: You will be able to support the business through working on meaningful IT projects and developments rather than patching mail servers, resetting passwords and installing word processing software.
So - “No, you will not lose your job if your organisation adopts a cloud computing strategy”, in fact - as an IT professional, you’ll actually be in a better position to provide your organisation with the full force of the value you can truly offer. You’ll be managing relationships and service levels with IT partners as well as developing an IT strategy that is more aligned with the businesses needs and objectives.
Let me explain...
Cloud Computing is, by definition, based in the Cloud i.e. off premise - and is wholly managed by someone else. So by adopting a Cloud Computing model you’re essentially removing the 90% of your day that’s taken up by ‘maintenance’ and replacing it with more meaningful activities.
For Example - if you’re currently running an on-site data centre where you manage your businesses email and office software, you would need to monitor and maintain:
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The servers themselves
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The generators & diesel
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The UPS & the electronics
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The fire retardation system
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Aircon
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Security
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The software itself (upgrades, fix’s, bugs, patches)
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The end-users (forgotten passwords, altered settings, email complications etc)
You need the time and knowledge to monitor each of these separate systems which could easily account for 90% of your daily activities (i.e. ‘Maintenance’). So essentially - you’re just keeping the lights on before even contributing to the strategic growth of the business.
If you were to adopt a IaaS/SaaS model (Infrastructure-as-a-service/Software-as-a-Service) and move your data centre to an off-site, shared facility where a strategic partner is responsible for security, power, maintenance, software etc - you no longer have to spend that 90% on Maintenance and can focus your knowledge, expertise and energies on other areas of the business.
In fact - your time spend will end up looking a bit more like this:
This is just one example - the same concept concept can be applied to Platforms (PaaS) and Hardware (Haas). The scale of cloud adoption depends on the individual organisation but you get the point.
So by adopting a Cloud Computing strategy the IT Department becomes more of a strategic partner for the future development of the business rather than a portion of the organisation that’s sole job is to ‘keep the lights on’ and no, you will not lose your job.
