Contrary to a sea of white papers and hours of slick video clips, the point when your back is against the wall is NOT the time to start looking to “the cloud” to save you. Instead, you need to start with a controllable situation of your own choosing that is as far from the fire, but as close to reality as possible. The IT battlefield is littered with mangled reputations and dead careers from those who picked up the shiny new technology-of-the-month and went chasing windmills, while hordes of very real IT problems overpowered them in a cruel game of attrition. Cloud technologies can help even the odds in many situations; however they very rarely can go straight into production without a proper evaluation. After all, you’re not just playing with technology here, but with workflow & mindset as well.