Today is the official launch day for Workstate's Cloud Shift practice. It may seem odd that we're so excited about launching this practice at the tail end of 2016. After all, hasn't significant cloud computing capability been around for over a decade? As true as that may be, it's my viewpoint that after a decade, the technology is just getting to a point where cloud computing has become truly life-changing.

The understanding and perception of cloud computing today still leans toward the simplistic description of running your code on a computer owned by someone else, somewhere else. That computing power isn’t tangible -- although it’s very visible and has dramatic effect -- it’s literally as untouchable as a cloud.

Consider electricity as a good cloud computing analogy, as it possesses many of the same characteristics. It is generated and delivered by a power plant you don’t own, you can’t actually feel it working, it supports functions that are impossible without it, and it runs so seamlessly in the background that you take it for granted -- until it’s unavailable.

In a similar fashion to electricity changing lives back in the turn of last century, cloud computing is reshaping the computing landscape -- as is evidenced by the incredible variety and rapid adoption of cloud computing products and services. Visit Amazon Web Services and look at the list of 75+ cloud computing products or Microsoft Azure’s 80+ list of products to realize that cloud computing isn’t just a computer running in some datacenter, somewhere. It’s the natural evolution of computing, and it’s well on its way to being as pervasive and as important in our daily lives as the Ancient Greeks/Franklin/Volta/Tesla/Edison’s discovery.

Workstate has launched with a focus on a modest area of cloud computing. An area that we’ve been working in for nearly two decades, but feel has evolved enough for us to help clients advance their systems in a helpful way. As part of our practice, we offer a host of Cloud Shift products and services for our clients. These parallel a typical journey to cloud computing.

We begin with our cloud Lift and Shift, which is the most basic of functions -- moving your applications from on-premise to a cloud platform. Where some applications are not simple enough to just port over, we instead retool them as needed in our  Lift and Refit option. The real benefits are realized in a Lift and Evolve approach where your applications gain as many of the benefits of cloud computing for your organization as possible. Finally, because of  nearly 20 years of experience under our belts, we can also take legacy products to cloud computing with a complete Lift and Rebuild.

The rapid evolution to cloud computing continues to feel a bit like electricity becoming commonplace; where soon enough, the term “cloud computing” will be as archaic as “electric light bulb.” We’ll all just be computing again; and, as always, Workstate will be there.

Curious about Cloud Shift with Workstate?