Slow Commotion: When The Internet Meets Critical Applications

Last year, you were a hero. After success with CRM in the cloud, you expanded to backups, then a database application for batch processing. Life was good, costs were lower, even remote workers were happy.

But you didn't stop there—the lure of on-demand was too strong. You pushed to include Internet-based VoIP access for remote offices and encouraged videoconferencing worldwide. Innovative, bold, frugal, you were a shoo-in for employee of the year. You even got to say "cloud paradigm" at parties with a straight face.

Then, things started slowing down. And not just the economy, but the performance of your cloud apps too. It all started innocently enough, with a few complaints about Internet slowness, then escalated when the CIO got blindsided by the VP of sales in front of the whole board. Suddenly, you've gone from hotshot innovator to hot seat: "Why didn’t we know remote workers were having problems? What’s being done to address the speed issue? Why did Google Apps go down last week? What about the outage in Sri Lanka? And why is my Comcast at home so slow?"

Suddenly, you're on the hook to support the entire Internet. Turns out, of all the goodness the cloud delivers, the one thing it can't promise is what users crave most—speed.

Party’s over. Now what? (700309)

Survey Name: InformationWeek Analytics Cloud Computing Survey
Survey Date: February 2009
Region: North America
Number of Respondents: 547

Table of Contents

4 Author’s Bio
5 Executive Summary
6 Research Synopsis
7 But Can You Trust It?
9 What’s The Problem?
10 Realize Performance Begins At Home
12 Work With Your ISP
15 Give Your Remote Workers Tools
16 Be Aware Of The Overall State Of The Internet
17 Optimize Your Connectivity
19 Tackle The Actual App
22 Share Your Pain
22 Grill Your Cloud Vendors
23 Not Going Away
24 Appendix

About the Author

Mike Healey is the president of Yeoman Technology Group, an engineering and research firm focusing on maximizing technology investments for organizations, and an InformationWeek Reports contributor. He has more than 23 years experience in technology and software integration.

Prior to founding Yeoman, Mike served as the CTO of national network integrator GreenPages. He joined GreenPages as part of the acquisition of TENCorp, where he served as president for 14 years. Prior to founding TENCorp, Mike was an international project manager for Nixdorf Computer and a Notes consultant for Sandpoint Corp.

Mike has taught courses at MIT Lowell Institute and Northeastern University and has served on the Educational Board of Advisers for several schools and universities throughout New England. He has a BA in operations management from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an MBA from Babson College.

He is a regular contributor for InformationWeek, focusing on the business challenges related to implementing technology. His work includes analysis of the SaaS market, green IT and operational readiness related to virtualized environments.