Rafael Cohen, director of information technology at the nearly 60-unit Biscuitville quick-service chain, has one foot in the clouds.
Cohen is considering a move to so-called “cloud computing,” or the use of third-party information systems services accessible using Internet technologies. The goal, he said, is to reduce the demands on his IT department staffers in terms of managing memory, processing and storage so they can focus on other things.
Already, Greensboro, N.C.-based Biscuitville has become “virtualized” by consolidating processes the company once handled on multiple computer servers onto a lesser number of such servers outfitted with hardware and software that enables each of them to mimic the workload of several standalone devices. Cloud computing would be the natural next step in further enhancing the company’s tech capabilities without additional infrastructure investment, Cohen said.
Few restaurant companies are using cloud computing now—in part because of security fears about sending internal data into an Internet platform—though some experts say such fears are unfounded.
Still, Cohen predicted that it won’t be long before the commoditization of computing catches on in a big way.
“It’s inevitable,” he said. “Everyone is going to move that way.”
At the Foodservice Technology Conference and Showcase, or FSTEC, in Long Beach, Calif., last month, cloud computing expert James Staten, principal analyst for Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research, offered a definition of cloud computing as “standardized IT capability delivered via Internet [technologies] in a pay-per-use, self-service way.” Such capabilities include services, software or infrastructure, he said.
The primary benefit is that cloud computing allows companies to rapidly create and deploy new capabilities without capital investment, while paying only for the services used, Staten said.
One of the most common ways restaurant operators use clouds is for Web hosting, but Staten contends that use of clouds also works well for testing and developing new services, gathering business intelligence, and running short-term projects.
When Wendy’s wanted to promote its 99-cent menu with a social media exercise on Facebook, the creative agency hired for the project turned to cloud computing to develop the campaign, fine-tune it to Wendy’s desires and deploy it very quickly.
Larger providers such as Amazon charge roughly 5 cents per hour to put an application on a virtual machine. Staten estimated that using, say, five virtual machines in a cloud for the Wendy’s project would probably have cost less than $300.
Best of all, after the two-week campaign was over, the cloud costs went away because of the pay-per-use nature of such services.
McDonald’s Corp. of Oak Brook, Ill., has said it expects to reduce IT costs and increase productivity by using Microsoft’s cloud tools for collaboration and communications. The company said it had completed half of its corporate rollout of the technology as of November.
Domino’s Pizza of Ann Arbor, Mich., is exploring the use of Microsoft’s Azure cloud technology “as an alternative way to handle increasing demand for all
Staten said the producers of the Indianapolis 500 turned to cloud computing during race week to temporarily amp up interactive offerings on the website,
Addressing security worries, Lee Patterson, vice president of information systems for Minneapolis-based Buffalo Wild Wings, said his company is still “getting over emotions about our data leaving our four walls.” Certain information, such as financial or human resources data, would not be used in a cloud because of such concerns, he said.
Staten said cloud computing players tend to be hyper-focused on security, particularly because if they have a major outage, they are likely to receive a great deal of negative media coverage.
And, while cloud providers may be immature, most of the big players are well-financed, so they’re not likely to disappear anytime soon, he noted.
For operators thinking about using cloud services, Staten offered the following advice:
Get your hands dirty. Amazon is one of the largest cloud providers. Get an account and see how it works.
Have an open conversation with company developers. Identify one or two clouds where they can play, but first establish policies about what sensitive information should not go into a cloud, until you know how to do it safely. Adapt policies as you become more comfortable with the tools.— [email protected]
