March 14, 2011 – We hear the term “cloud” every day, but what does it mean to us, and more importantly, how do we decide whether or not to move our data?

Information Management brought this issue to our attention in their article, “5 Laws of Data Integration in the Cloud.” There are huge advantages to moving to the cloud: reduced expenses, powerful elastic computing platforms that handle peak loads, fast implementations and reduced IT needs, to start. But before you jump on the cloud, be sure you know what to expect in regards to data integration. Many businesses have begun transitioning back to an on-premises situation because of the unexpected challenges in that area.

The author of this interesting article points out a few reasons why data integration can be so intimidating. First on that list was how data is widely distributed in the clouds. The mystery of the distance between you and your data is disturbing to some.

Take a few minutes to read the other reasons. It might help you down the road.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.