Cloud Computing and your company's infrastructure

Bold forecast :).. But in 5 to 10 years, I predict the majority of a company’s infrastructure will be hosted in a “cloud”. If you recall (circa 2000..), most of the companies were hosting “anti-spam” services in house. If anyone suggested that we can outsource that service, you would get a “are-you-crazy” look :). And now, you will get the same look if anyone suggests they run the anti-spam service in house. I believe the same is going to happen for infrastructure. You might still be running some components in house, but it will get smaller and smaller. Companies will be forced to focus on their core competency rather than try to maintain an army of engineers to perform tasks that someone else might be a lot better at.

Speaking of being visionary, apparently Netflix operates most of their infrastructure in the cloud. If Netflix can operate in the cloud, a majority of us can too :). Here are some links regd their lessons from moving to a cloud.

http://blip.tv/file/4252897 (Video of Netflix Director of Engineering explaining their move to the cloud)

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxwcmFjdGljYWxjbG91ZGNvbXB1dGluZ3xneDo2NDc2ODVjY2ExY2Y1Zjcz&pli=1 (Write up by a Netflix engineer about the move to the cloud from a storage and DB prospective)