Challenging Cloud Myths, Part 3

Third in a series debunking myths about the cloud… Myth#3 – The cloud will replace IT. As noted in this Forbes article, “The problem with the equation cloud computing = IT job losses is that it’s a gross oversimplification.” As more and more organization deploy cloud solutions, IT plays the critical role of understanding the overall enterprise strategy and takes responsibility for bringing together a myriad of cloud solutions. IT can help a company realize the full value of the cloud across the entire organization without the burden of day-to-day application management. In fact, the role of the enterprise architect is quickly becoming the most important IT staff job. The enterprise architect is responsible for the integration of virtualized IT environments and requires not only significant technical skills but also strong business communication skills. I was recently at an event and was speaking with the IT Director of a $2+ billion company, and his thoughts echoed my own. He said, “The job of IT is changing, it’s now our job to solve issues like: How do we share data? Are we going to plumb the voice and the data together? When we buy another application or another group wants to join how will that work?”