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Cloud Computing - Past, Present and Future
Once companies virtualize - the #1 benefit is not cost savings but speed.
Cloud computing myths:
1) Only megaproviders will win - False. There are fragmented markets out there with good enough scale for smaller providers and as usual when it comes to technology, innovation makes agility (of a small provider) a competitive advantage. There will be thousands/tens of thousands of providers.
2) There will be a "big switch" - No despite what Nick Carr wrote, it will be a slow migration that takes decades and won't be so black and white - cloud and in-house - but instead will end up being more hybrid models (cloud and in-house).
3) Cloud computing is IT commoditization - services offered in cloud may be commoditizing but new applications will be enabled by the cloud.
Evolution of Cloud: Gartner's been talking about Real-Time Infrastructure for 8 years. Vendors like HP and IBM have talked about "adaptive enterprise", "on-demand", "dynamic infrastructure" and more for years as well.
Virtualization is a modernization catalyst and unlocks cloud computing.nables economies of scale (sharing) cloud-ready efficiency
decouples it from users (culture change) cloud-ready interface
speed and elasticity (rapid reaction to change) cloud-ready speed
breaks software pricing and licensing (fractional use, consolidated, dynamic change) cloud-ready pricing
enables and motivates chargeback (from fixed to variable use) cloud-ready costing
Efficiency Technologies that enable cloud computing:
multitenant software
virtualization
automation
parallel computing
Cloud Computing definition again:
A style of computing where scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service to external customers using Internet technologies
Assumption - through 2012 more than 75% of enterprise use of cloud computing will be devoted to very large data queries, short-term massively parallel workloads, or IT use by startups with little to no IT infrastructure. Not a lot of mission-critical. Mainly experimenting with the cloud for now.
How the cloud computing market will evolve:
Today - cloud services tend to be standardized, elastic but in "chunks," and monolithic in nature. In future, custom service levels, rapid and granular elasticity and open, federated markets of services.
Not everything will move to the cloud. What types of services won't:
Not a business differentiator
Relatively static service
Very separate
Service generally not end-customer facing
GOALS:
self-service, easy-to-use
independent from business
ultimate destination is cloud computing
Cloud computing is a continuum: private cloud on one end, public cloud on the other (degrees). Where the cloud services fall depends on ownership and service control/access. Examples:
private cloud - internal dev/test device
public cloud - web search
in between - business partner cloud services, dedicated SaaS instances (e.g., a dedicated MS Exchange online - "hosted")
Why Private Cloud:
low barrier to entry
elastic and scalable
lower cost and pay per use
ease of sourcing migration (stepping stone to public cloud)
Moving to Private Cloud Computing - How to get there:
- service inventory
- service levels/requirements
- current costs for each service
- roadmap for each service
- evaluate and predict cloud service
- business case for private cloud service
- Build: service abstraction and interface, usage metering, shared technology implementation
About the Author David Link is president and CEO of ScienceLogic. He and his partners built a thriving company from the ground up by focusing on delivering "products that just work" to the underserved IT infrastructure management marketplace. He has held senior management and corporate officer positions at large public companies.
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