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Cloud computing versus legacy systems: away with received ideas!

May 2016 by Pierre Schaller, Directeur Général Délégué de Cloud Temple

According to a BT Group study, 61% of French IT decision makers believe that cloud computing will deeply transform the way they do their job.This major evolution in the Information Technology still faces many prejudices and suffers from oriented marketing lines. It is common to oppose cloud computing to legacy system, known as the only serious and reliable IT that have proven themselves and are capable to host critical business applications and sensitive company data. Yet there are many examples that go against these misconceptions.

The information system of the French SEC is hosted in the cloud. It is also the case of many players in the banking and insurance area. Why these institutions and companies, manipulating huge amounts of particularly sensitive data, have they made that choice rather than maintain their traditional legacy systems, often considered stronger and safer?

First of all, they have evaluated differences between their own IT systems in terms of security and those of cloud providers. Large operators are investing hugely in the physical security of their infrastructures, in monitoring, redundancy and firefighting systems, but also in protections against cyber intrusions and attacks. The issues of architecture and computer security are well supported by their specialists whose skills are rarely accessible to companies, even the bigger ones. Availability, confidentiality and data integrity are therefore provided much more efficiently than by an internal IT department whatever means are available.

The logic that drives companies to outsource their data to specialized service providers is thus the same as that pushes everyone to entrust their money to a bank rather than keeping it under his pillow: the bank has achieved a degree of equipment and safety competence that no individual can acquire.

These financial institutions who have made the choice of cloud computing could also be seduced by its flexibility. Predictable costs, agility and elastic resources are decisive advantages that change the life of every CIO and company as a whole. The risk of over-investment in infrastructure are eliminated along with the delays and unavailability periods associated with peak loads.

But these arguments which made the success of cloud computing are now complemented by an observation: in companies whose information system is hosted in the cloud, the CIO is not only a cost, but an internal service provider, offering agile computing resources and applications to his business counterparts. Today it is those CIOs who allow their company to keep pace in the race for innovation. The time saved by outsourcing is now devoted to optimize the company production system, make it more productive and prepare for the future.

The opposition between legacy systems and IT in the cloud is often presented in terms of the choice between traditional security and loss of company’s data control. It’s time to get out of this outdated dichotomy and recognize that the role of the CIO is not only the maintenance of a static system, but innovation and deployment of new tools to contribute directly to the company’s growth.


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