Connecting Points: Takeaways from CIO Executive Council Workshops

Define the nature and scope of the services that are cloud candidates

No matter how interested executives or users are in the promise of cloud computing, not everything should be considered, much less moved there. Mature services are better candidates than new ones, as are temporary or peak-period applications that are resource-intensive to bring up and take down if kept on in-house systems.

Determine the risk threshold

High security is not always necessary. To determine security requirements, perform a classification of assets reflecting the company’s tolerance of risk.

Negotiate terms for all scenarios

Many vendors advise giving your company room to grow in the cloud, but you should also anticipate needing the ability to scale down.

Lock in standards

Once a decision has been made on what is moving and where, create a mechanism to enforce standards for the new processes.

Rationalize policies

Don’t assume automatic buy-in. To head off pushback, share the rationale for policies, particularly those that deny users functionality

Insights collected from participants at the CIO Perspectives Forum in San Francisco, Calif., Sept. 23, 2009, and the CIO: The Year Ahead Summit in Indian Wells, Calif., Nov. 10, 2009. Register for upcoming CIO Perspectives at www.cio.com/executive-programs.