Cloud Influencer David Linthicum Shares His Industry Insights

A top tech expert shares his insider tips for businesses of any size considering the transition to cloud computing.

When it comes to all things cloud, David Linthicum is your guy. An executive, consultant, writer and public speaker in the field of cloud computing, he was named the No. 1 industry influencer by a 2016 Apollo Research report. Mediaplanet touched base with the tech guru on why and how savvy companies are making the migration.

Boost for Business

For businesses, agility is both the primary objective and major advantage of cloud computing. Successful cloud migration offers “the ability to move quicker, react to changes made to the business, grow without limits.” Linthicum says, “The ability to change at the ‘speed of need’ and the ability to expand quickly to accommodate the business is where the real money is made with cloud computing.”

Cloud choice

For some businesses, hybrid cloud is the ideal solution. Because “you have a paired public and private cloud and can put workloads on whatever platform,” it allows for more choice than the alternatives. Another benefit, he adds, “is the ability to better integrate with legacy systems, since you’re still maintaining a presence within your data center.” Public cloud providers, on the other hand, work well for businesses looking to keep costs low because, unlike private clouds, they don’t “require that you have your own hardware and software footprint.”

Safe space

Public clouds can also offer a readybuilt security structure. These enterprises “provide security services that you can leverage right from their cloud” and are already committing time and money to keeping data safe. “Breaches are largely caused by enterprise IT not paying attention to the patches and fixes they need to proactively remove vulnerabilities. If you have a proactive security system in place and automate much of what can be automated, the hackers will move on to easier prey.”

The right stuff

Cloud migration is a challenging task for any size enterprise, and Linthicum cautions that businesses are often unprepared. To get ready for the challenges of implementation, he recommends hiring IT professionals with the right skillsets, including, among many roles, “cloud architects, cloud developers and cloud operations specialists. “At the end of the day,” he argues, “success will be determined largely around who’s around to make the right decisions.”

“The ability to change at the ‘speed of need’ and the ability to expand quickly to accommodate the business is where the real money is made with cloud computing.”