THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA"

The NY Metro IT Pro Exchange : Windows Azure – What the IT Pro and/or SME business has been waiting for…:
http://blogs.technet.com/bobh/archive/2010/03/10/windows-azure-what-the-it-pro-and-or-sme-business-has-been-waiting-for.aspx

"So let me give somewhat of a real-life example.  Any of you who have seen me speak at the TechNet events has probably heard me use the example of an accounting application during tax season.  Having access to a server infrastructure that can expand to meet the needs of the business for the 3 months of tax season and then contract back to a smaller footprint after April 15th is something that business owners and IT Pros can only dream about, but that is what is indeed delivered with Windows Azure.  In a matter of minutes, an IT Pro or SME business owner could expand the number of instances that the tax software was running to meet the demand and then in a matter of minutes on April 16th, contract the number of instances of the tax application back to an appropriate number for the rest of the year.  The cost to the accounting business does NOT include the thousands of dollars of the extra servers, but rather just the additional processing that was used for the period it was needed.  In this example, the additional cost would be quite small.  Go see for yourself how Windows Azure is priced: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/pricing/. "

Here's where Cloud hype meets reality.  I'm a SME.  I'm a CPA.  During tax season we have all the tax processing needs met by my existing on premises server.  It doesn't take that much more overhead of computing that the day to day operations.  In fact SBS monitoring, SQL and Exchange take more processing power.  Hard drive space I plan for.  That doesn't contract after tax season.  I still need to have that information.  And quite honestly that database is my smallest one I have to worry about.  It really doesn't take that much room and is an efficient filer of data.  I don't need a cloud to put on more capacity during tax season, mainly because the solution I use right now doesn't support Azure.  It wasn't built for cloud deployment.  It was built for an on premises server.  It's not supported to be spun up on an Azure cloud.

Here's the reality of the cloud down here.  My vendors use clouds.  They already have cloud solutions in place and tested for those times that I'm efiling through them and using their servers.  CCH is through Perot Business Systems in Texas (now Dell), Intuit's Lacerte last I checked was using Amazon to spin up the extra processing power that THEY need when we efile through them.  They are already designing SAAS solutions, again on their data centers.  Historically in the past they've not planned for enough capacity which is why THEY are the ones spinning up the clouds this time of year, not me.

But the reality of the SME is that I will not be worrying about such things as Azure blobs and what not.  My vendors might.  They certainly are working with Amazon and Perot Systems.  But  I will not be.  It's only SMEs that are development type companies that are in the thick of the Internet development stuff (which is not a small to medium sized CPA firm that does taxes) that use cloud development platforms like this.

Oh, I might consume cloud platforms, and certainly use clouds now to move data from my office securely to my clients, but I'm sure not going to spln up instances of my tax software on clouds.  My vendors will.

My biggest fear with all this cloud hype that everyone is getting sucked into is that there is a fundamental flaw of accountability and being able to be in a bargaining position that I lose as a SME versus many of my cloud vendors.  I don't have the cloud when working with them.  I'm a rounding error on their balance sheet.  To make me happy as a user is so not in their business plan.

 On-Premise Servers Not So Essential After All:
http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/commentary/On-Premise-Servers-Not-So-Essential-After-All.aspx
"If ever there was a market that doesn't need to be hosting its own email infrastructure inhouse, for example, it's the small business."

One size clothing doesn't fit all in females and it sure doesn't in solutions for small businesses.  While some small firm can use hosted email/cloud offerings, some of us have key applications that plug into Exchange, some of us have regulations and requirements that the cloud vendors just aren't ready to deliver on.  The poster in the comments about the Google apps marketplace opening up said it well... we got some ways to go with cloud applications.  We're in this very bumpy/hypey transition that needs some shake out to occur before things settle down to the new normal.

Small and medium sized businesses need flexibility, need solutions that don't just cram them into cookie cutter solutions without understanding of needs and oh yeah, we need cheap.   What we don't always have with cloud vendors that we need to be very careful and read the fine print is ironclad SLAs and contracts.  We get eula's and monthly credit card bills.  Read the fine print.  Go in getting past all the hype and talk to someone really truly using these solutions.  Ask them about work flow and use.  What they like, what they dislike.

But sorry to disappoint the Azure crowd, but I seriously doubt that I personally will be setting up an Azure instance and charging it to my credit card bill.  My vendors might.  But hopefully after doing their homework.

This may not be the on premise server only world we used to live in, but I can assure you I don't see any CPAs suddenly standing up Azure clouds tomorrow.