Cloud computing got you scared? Forrester analyst James Staten has a name for those of you who cling fervently to the hardware in your data center: server huggers. It’s only natural that IT workers would want to keep their hardware close at hand. It’s certainly easier to control something that’s only an arm’s length away, and there’s always that nagging fear: if the server goes, does my job go with it? Staten and other industry observers are bluntly telling IT to get over it. Problems with resource-hungry virtual servers are easily addressable now, and cloud-resource monitoring software is giving IT the window into offsite processing that it needs to keep some feeling of control. In other words, cloud and virtual servers aren't invisible anymore. But how to break through the psychological barrier? As IT World puts it, “A lot of managers would rather measure their importance against the amount of space their departments take up, or their headcount or the number of servers they need, rather than the importance or quality of the work their departments produce. Quality is so much harder to quantify than quantity. “ Today, IT managers in cloud-heavy environments may be managing vendors more than managing employees. It’s a shift, but it’s inevitable, and IT has to get used to it. “Handing some of the load-balancing and capacity planning off to an outside vendor isn't that big a deal from the point of view of the CFO and CEO. It's just one more way to get the computing done,” says IT World. Server huggers need to let go of the hardware. You don’t want to connect yourself to something that’s increasingly being identified as obsolete.