Managing Editor, Features and Multimedia
Execs Weigh Pros and Cons of Cloud Computing
Flatbed hauler P&S Transportation, for example, has moved some basic functionality to the cloud — which refers to using remote servers hosted on the Internet to store and process data — but has kept is core business software in house.
“We haven’t moved our core to the cloud. The data that we hold dear is still on our premises,” Mauricio Paredes, director of information technology at P&S Transportation, said here Feb. 29 at American Trucking Associations’ Executive Leadership Forum, held in conjunction with the Technology & Maintenance Council’s annual meeting.
Marc Mitchell, vice president at McLeod Software, said a recent fleet survey found that the most frequently cited benefits of cloud-based software are easy user access and easy deployment, while the most commonly cited disadvantages or risks were security and potential limits on data availability.
McLeod Software's Marc Mitchell discusses cloud computing at ATA Executive Forum. #TMC2016 pic.twitter.com/nVIaGInbwa
— Seth Clevenger (@SethClevenger) February 29, 2016
When considering moving a function to the cloud, it is important for fleets to have a clear understanding of the security of their data and their access rights for that data before shifting important records off their own systems and moving them to the cloud, he said.
“If you’re moving your capability into the hands of others, you’ve got to be pretty clear on what commitments they’re giving you for those services,” Mitchell said. “There are a lot of people buying cloud-based solutions without service-level agreements, and that’s really dangerous.”
Paredes said e-mail is an example of a basic function that is well-suited to the cloud.
“In my opinion, people should not have their own email servers anymore,” he said. “If we were to have our own e-mail servers in-house, we would need a team of people to support it.”
However, that decision is more difficult for functions that are closer to the company’s core competency.
“The closer you get to the core, the tougher that question becomes,” Paredes said. “I’m not saying core enterprise software will never be ready for the cloud, but a lot of the core software that we use nowadays was built before the cloud was in place.”
Paredes also said the time when fleets used to make one-time software purchases is “long gone.”
“You can’t just buy your software and not upgrade for three years,” he said. “When you buy a service, you buy a service that matures. The provider makes that software better as you go along.”
