Moving your IT operations to the ubiquitous ‘cloud’ is touted by many as a cost-saving, outsourcing option that will improve your company’s bottom line, free up IT staffers and generally improve your company’s performance by leaps and bounds. So why aren’t more CIOs hopping on the cloud bandwagon? Some suggest it’s because IT managers fear their role in the organization will be marginalized if they’re managing vendors instead of supervising legions of in-house workers.

The teams required to manage a fully operational data center, with its racks of servers and network services, can offer some IT managers an illusion of power and turn them what Computerworld’s Patrick Thibodeau refers to as “server huggers.”

But is that characterization really fair?

It depends a lot on your business and how it’s been set up.

For many firms, the pathway to advancement is clearly rooted in a manager’s track record for corralling teams of workers and  managing labor-intensive projects.

To your CIO, losing those bodies and the control over all that equipment may look like a threat to both job security and promotion.

Finance leaders are often the folks to whom the CIO reports. If a CFO doesn’t appreciate the value and risks of a move to the cloud, this finance chief can be unprepared to push for change in the face of a recalcitrant IT manager who’s fearful of losing IT control and future advancements if operations are outsourced to cloud vendors.

Understanding what IT services are best located on hosted servers and which need to be kept close to home is crucial to managing the IT chief’s budget and operations.

Deciding if your CIO is a “server hugger” or just exercising caution before plunging into new tech territory may take the help of an independent tech analyst who’s got neither ties to cloud vendors or allegiance to your IT department.

Tags: cloud computing, server, services, transition