Navigating through the Cloud: A plain English guide to surviving the risks, costs and governance pitfalls of Cloud computing

Written by an experienced CIO with substantial real-world experience in the design, implementation and management of Cloud technologies, this book is a practical, plain English guide that discusses the commercial, governance, risk and cost issues of Cloud for your business, and provides you with an easy to understand framework to assess the cost and risk of moving to the Cloud. Realise the value of Cloud by avoiding the real and hidden pitfalls. This book is for executives and stakeholders in your organisation with a vested interest in the successful implementation of Cloud projects and the use of your organisation’s IT systems - and that's not just the IT Department It insightfully and professionally reveals the kinds of issues that you are likely to face in adopting Cloud technologies in your business, whether that be small, mid-market or multinational. Focus on Software as a Service (SaaS) - Also known as the Public Cloud, SaaS is sometimes referred to as "software on-demand". You pay for what you use through a regular subscription service, and the software is accessed over the Internet. Your own nothing, except the data you load into the system. SaaS is where the majority of risk, complexity, cost and governance issues reside, and for this reason, it forms the focus of this book.

Rob is the owner of Rob Livingstone Advisory Pty Ltd - an independent IT consulting and advisory practice based in Sydney, which provides tightly integrated IT Advisory and Consulting service to companies of all sizes based on the core services of Advisory (defining the problem), Consulting, (solving the problem), and Business Transformation through coaching and mentoring. He is also a Fellow at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia, where he teaches postgraduate students in the areas of leadership, strategy and innovation on UTS' flagship Master of Business in Information Technology Management (MBITM) program. Rob has over 3 decades of industrial and operational experience in the corporate world, half of which as a CIO in a number of multinationals, most recently as CIO of Ricoh in Australia. He is a regular columnist in CIO magazine in Australia and CFO.com in the USA, and has also provided commentary on Cloud computing, IT security, mCommerce and a number of other IT topics in the media including radio, press and TV. Other than Rob's academic, consulting and advisory activities, he also runs the RLA CIO Mentor(TM) program, helping transform IT leaders into resilient, capable and confident, business relevant executives. www.rob-livingstone.com www.navigatingthroughthecloud.com/