Cloud is where all of us reside literally/virtually and eventually. Most of our data including our private and public moments are part of cloud dropbox,mails,facebook,evernote. We no longer need to buy boxes or even think of the mamoth task of where all of this data get stored. On a personal front the challenges are far less complicated pushing data to the cloud. On an organisation/ enterprise level we need to have the following queries addressed before even thinking of the cloud. Of course we need to plan for the rainy day lest the cloud eats up competition.

Some top level queries here that can get the thinking started ….

• It is no longer about who is making the box .
• Do we need to put data that is having an additional overhead before it goes into the cloud instead of plain encryption/decryption such as multi lingual / data massaging.
• What would the cost of license software that is specific to my context that lies on the cloud.
• How do you manage system upgrades and application software upgrades into the cloud.
• Multi tenancy – Customize your software for every users need in short for this big term.
• Our software is too monolithic and we need to enable it for the cloud can’t push the elephant into the fridge.
• Are we in for the challenges of accepting there would be some software that we could turn OFF before putting in the cloud. Is it so simple ?
• Security
• Does hosting data on the cloud meet the compliance and industry requirements of the region or country operating in
• Vendors – Who are they – amazon/google/windows azure/rack space/sales force based on what do you want to host(hardware/software) and leverage – SAAS/PAAS/IAAS …
• What kind of data will you move to the cloud
• Pricing as against what the combined software/solution offering is going to be.
• What downtimes are acceptable ?
• Elastic cloud – Optimum use of your resources ( nothing more nothing less). Grow as your data grows and do not break at some point of time.
• Will my data be blown away is there a backup with what levels of periodicity.
• Will it be there for eternity what is the archival period
• Does it need to be accessed from geographically separate areas
• Data in motion / Data at rest ( which one are you putting on the cloud ?)
• Have we done our due diligence in terms of licensing the components that resides in the cloud.

Turn your data to the cloud be it big or small the challenges would primarily be around the above concerns. Each one of it can be essayed into a book/company or spend zillion man hours finding a best solution. So how to you work at the optimum and do what is best for your organisation is an interesting topic. How much of the pie are you willing to cut now and rest it later and in what spirals with what value being delivered around the turns,