Many enterprises follow the crowd and choose as many hyped concepts as possible. Don't do it. Work from the requirements to the solution, not the other way around. Credit: Thinkstock Buzzwords drive the IT industry—always have and always will. This holds true whether you deal with structured programming, object-oriented programming, client/server, distributed objects, enterprise application integration, data warehousing, and service-oriented architecture. Now it’s cloud computing with all its related buzzwords. We tend to chase the hyped trends. This industrywide practice drove me to coin the term “manage by magazine,” where the coolness of a concept or term becomes more important than the actual applied value. Today I call it “buzzword-oriented architecture,” or BOA. The trouble with this approach is that you try to solve a problem by force-fitting a specific solution, regardless of fit. In other words, you “know” the answer before you truly understand the problem. The overuse of containers and container orchestration these days provides some of the best examples of BOA. Although containers and container orchestration are potent approaches to turning net-new and existing applications into more valuable and scalable workloads, they don’t fit every application or every system. This is the most common mistake I see today, as enterprises spend twice as much modernizing a workload that didn’t really need to be containerized, all because someone wanted to put containers on their CV. Why am I bringing it up now if it’s a known and long-time problem? I see BOA drive most cloud architectures these days, with enterprises paying the price for expensive mistakes. As I covered here, these architectures “work,” but because they function at a much lower level of cost efficiency, enterprises typically spend two to three times more than a better-optimized solution. Just look at the misapplications of containers to see many examples of this expensive problem. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that company executives say their costs have risen as they shifted to cloud computing. Why? Cloud computing didn’t fail the business; those who created the cloud solutions failed the business. Instead of finding the most cost-effective and optimized cloud architecture, they took a BOA approach that started with answers before there was a clear understanding of the questions. I’ve created many IT architecture concepts and many buzzwords in my career. The danger comes when those concepts and buzzwords are misapplied and we mistakenly blame the concept, not the person who misapplied it. While this is frustrating, the more significant impact is that we don’t live up to the expectations of the business. As IT professionals, we must provide the most optimized and cost-effective solution possible with all available technology. Most people have good intentions. However, many IT staff lack the depth of cloud knowledge or experience required for cloud optimization, or they lack the time and money required to gain that knowledge. The speed at which we can deploy cloud solutions these days amplifies the BOA problem. BOA is typically less efficient and thus drives much higher cloud bills. Moreover, cloud systems bill in ways that reward resource-efficient systems. This is why most enterprises do not realize their anticipated ROI for cloud computing. Take the time to look beyond the buzzwords. Related content analysis Generative AI won’t fix cloud migration You’ve probably heard how generative AI will solve all cloud migration problems. It’s not that simple. Generative AI could actually make it harder and more costly. By David Linthicum Jul 12, 2024 5 mins Generative AI Artificial Intelligence Cloud Computing analysis All the brilliance of AI on minimalist platforms Buy all the processing and storage you can or go with a minimum viable platform? AI developers and designers are dividing into two camps. By David Linthicum Jul 09, 2024 5 mins Generative AI Cloud Architecture Artificial Intelligence analysis The next 10 years for cloud computing Despite AI's explosive growth, the industry still needs to face facts that customers are unhappy about costs and vendor lock-in. By David Linthicum Jul 05, 2024 5 mins Amazon Web Services Google Cloud Platform Microsoft Azure analysis Serverless cloud technology fades away Serverless was a big deal for a hot minute, but now it seems old-fashioned, even though its basic elements, agility and scalability, are still relevant. By David Linthicum Jul 02, 2024 4 mins Serverless Computing Cloud Computing Software Development Resources Videos