Cloud Computing and Agile Organization Development

Abstract

In the 3rd millennium economy, defined by globalization and continuous reduction of natural resources, the economic organization becomes the main actor in the phenomenon of transformation and adaptation to new conditions. Even more, the economic environment, which is closely related to the social environment, undergoes complex metamorphoses, especially in the management area. In this dynamic and complex social and environmental context, the economic organization must possess the ability to adapt, becoming a flexible and agile answer to new market opportunities. Considering the spectacular evolution of information and communications technology, one of the solutions to ensure organization agility is cloud computing. Just like the development of any science requires adaptation to theories and instruments specific to other fields, a cloud computing paradigm for the agile organization must appeal to models from management, cybernetics, mathematics, structuralism and information theory (or information systems theory).Keywords: Cloud Computing, Agile Development, Enterprise Architecture, Project Management, Agile Methodologies, Information and Communications Technology (ICT)Objectives1This analytical-methodological and theoretical-practical endeavour constitutes an original scientific incursion into the philosophy and theory of cloud computing from the perspective of turning it into a real framework for ensuring agility in the development of economic organizations. Also, theoretical approach is supported by highlighting practical aspects regarding cloud computing market and the influence big actors of this market may have on the success of a cloud computing paradigm for organization development. The original approach brings forth the emergent production factors of the knowledge society, digital economy and globalization phenomenon. They include information, organization culture, and enterprise architecture in terms of business, information and technology.2 Cloud computing philosophyIn the spring of 2001, in Claremont, California, Peter F. Drucker - considered one of the founders of modern science of management by business specialists and academics - talking about the challenge ahead, said may almost certainly say that the challenges we will have to face in the tomorrow 's conditions are of management nature and concern the individuals. ... those tasks cannot be performed by the state, but only by individual organizations - lucrative enterprises and nongovernmental non-lucrative organizations - and individuals [1]Tomorrow's economic conditions invoked by Dmcker are visible even today and the socialeconomic entities mentioned are indeed the economic organizations and the individuals. The management philosophy of the contemporary organization includes both global market agility and modern paradigms that target directly the human resource (as primary production factor), like the anthropocentric model. Even more, when the agility approach is supported by the use of information and communications technology instmments, cloud computing becomes its stmctural foundation.Cloud computing is a relatively modern ICT concept and represents an aggregation of distributed services for computation, applications, data access and storage. The cloud computing philosophy assumes that the entire ensemble is hidden to the user, which does not know the location and physical configuration of the systems that provide the services. Terminologically, cloud computing derives from a symbolic graphical representation of the global network as a cloud, used when technical details of the internet may be ignored (Figure 1).In other words, cloud computing represents one of the significant tendencies of ICT evolution, bringing a new model for provision, management and security within the organization. Currently, there is no universally accepted definition of cloud computing. The national Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) present a base for the definition, describing cloud computing as a model that provides access on demand, through a network to an array of shared configurable information resources (like networks, servers, storage space, applications and services). …