The face of it

On the face of it, cloud computing solves a lot of problems. Centralised computing, ease of management and update, a managed service approach that reduces the need for in-house expertise the list of advantages goes unceasingly.

Cloud approach

For a cloud approach, you need connectivity. Some companies make the mistake of adopting cloud-based applications without appreciating that the application instantly becomes unusable were their internet connection - now a single point of failure - to break. For cloud applications, this may partly simply be an inconvenience; for cloud-based mobile desktop services, the users' entire desktops evaporate in a puff of non-flowing electrons.

So if you want to rely on this kind of service, be prepared to spend money on resilient network connectivity, preferably with a service provider that has a diverse Internet access infrastructure.

The growth of desktop mobility is among the biggest of trends in desktop management, and one that looks set to accelerate. Nevertheless, it brings its own challenges. When your organisation's users start roving, alongside the more traditional desktop world, you'll find your research needs change with the potential for higher costs.

If your salesmen and managers can't work on a Boeing 777 over the Atlantic, you're likely to hear some whining. So you'll need either to provide acceptably fast mobile connectivity, or maybe work with a cloud provider able to provide services just as desktop cacheing. This will give users mobility: they take the desktop out on the road at that time sync up with the cloud the then time they're nearly a LAN, WAN or Internet/VPN service.

The legal aspects of cloud computing

Always worthy of consideration are the legal aspects of cloud computing. A cloud system in its most abstract sense is a completely opaque concept, in that you theoretically don't have to care what processing is happening where - you just define your service level agreement and rely on the provider to ensure that the application response time and availability is in line with that SLA. In reality, although, you do have to care - the most prominent and common reason being US Export Control laws.

If your company and its directors are subject to financial penalties and possibly imprisonment after all that data flows from the US to a location that it shouldn't, you as a matter of fact do need to care about precisely where the data on these virtual desktops is living, where users can access it, and what nationality those users are. Clearly, this isn't a problem in a class by itself to Cloud computing, however the inherent opaqueness is something you thoroughly must be very wary of.