It is nice to see the transformation of hype into reality. As someone who has spent a lot of years in technology sales and marketing, hype sometimes has a negative connotation in our industry. There have been times when hype has gotten ahead of technology’s ability to deliver and times when hype has led to misplaced expectations for what new technology can in fact deliver. However technology hype (I think enthusiasm might be a better term) is not a bad thing. It creates excitement for and focuses attention on new innovations that have potential to improve business operations and service delivery. Hype is always going to be ahead of reality… it is important that far more often than not, reality needs to rise to meet the expectations of  hype (enthusiasm)

The hype (or enthusiasm) for cloud computing does not need any more gas dumped on the raging fire. I think cloud computing instead needs to see the foundations of business benefit beginning to take shape in the form of successful projects and realized business benefits. I am very pleased to report that we are starting to see the reality of cloud computing supporting the sky-high enthusiasm and expectations.

One TBL client in particular has, in essentially 120 days, transformed their entire operations from a quintessential 1990’s operation into a fully operational private cloud, and the business benefits are starting to flow. What has changed and improved? Lots. A better question might be what hasn’t? Tactical/transactional costs to “add more of the same” to the prior infrastructure  that were very high are now gone. Growth by acquisition was stymied by an infrastructure that was inflexible and difficult at best to scale. In fact growth of any kind was expensive to support and even more expensive if not impossible to maintain with any degree of integrity. Now, the private cloud is a facilitator of cost-effective growth and is a point of leverage for future acquisitions. Business recovery services that were simply an auditor’s check-mark in the past will be fully dynamic and deployable in the coming 60 days. Cost effective growth is now standard operating procedure. Business differentiating agility is now baked into the business through the private cloud. This company can now turn on a dime, reacting to new needs in the market and deploying new services in record time.

None of this happened by accident. New leadership and staff has shown remarkable foresight in developing a winning strategy combined with superb ability to execute. TBL engineers have helped architect and deliver replicable best practices in deploying a private cloud. And not to be overlooked, the technology that delivers the private cloud has lived up to every iota of its hype, its potential, and its expectations. Cloud is certainly the biggest hype of the past several years. It is gratifying and exciting to see hype morph into reality for our clients and see business benefits emerge as promised.