By now, you’ve no doubt heard all about public clouds — those cast-in-concrete, one-size fits-all services to the general public or a large industry group. This is what many people think of as Cloud Computing — a monolith.
But Cloud Computing is far from monolithic. In fact there are many types of Clouds. Here I’m focusing on the three major approaches to Cloud Computing …
By any measure, Cloud Computing represents a big change in how IT does things — and by definition, change carries a friction quotient. What’s the friction quotient when it comes to Cloud Computing? Here are a couple of takes, where you’ll notice a few common themes:
This one, from IBM’s 2011 Tech Trends study , shows that concerns about security are top-of-mind for those moving to Cloud Computing …
By 2015, market researcher IDC reported late last year, more U.S. Internet users will access the Internet through mobile devices than through PCs or other wireline devices.
This kind of mobility in business is unquestionably a game-changer . And the fact is, it can’t happen without a Cloud infrastructure. And once mobility and Cloud infrastructure team up, the effect will — and, indeed, is fast becoming — far-reaching.
Here’s what I see coming fast:
The centralization of apps, data, and management that’s an essential part of well-conceived and well-managed Cloud environments also helps make them more secure. Why? Because security policy is easier to enforce, threats to apps and data are easier to detect and address.
Since Cloud data and apps are centralized in a data center , it’s actually easier (as compared to traditional siloed IT infrastructures) to establish effective security policy, monitor compliance, and intervene quickly and often preventatively when there are issues
In the right Cloud environment, IT performance goes up while IT costs go down.
Here’s how IT performance goes up:
Applications are hosted on centralized virtual servers in a data center, so …
Each department or end-user no longer needs their own copy of the app,
There’s just one version of the app, designed to be sufficiently flexible and customizable so all can use it on a variety of devices, and
Services are easily scalable, more secure, and more reliable.
Applications can be quickly and automatically provided on demand wherever they’re needed, so …
IT resources are optimized,
The entire IT environment is more responsive and flexible without adding work or cost, and
Access to resources improves without new implementation/deployment risks.
And end-users and their departments — as well as trusted partners — can be networked far more cost-effectively, regardless of location, via a standardized platform that enables integration and process automation between internal departments and partners.
Not so long ago, I came across a press release from Gartner , the analyst firm, which quoted one of its vice presidents saying:
“IT organizations that do not match the request for IT as a service run the risk of internal customers bypassing the IT organization and consuming IT services from the external cloud, thereby placing the company at greater risk.”
It turns out that the analysts at Gartner see a world of hybrid IT architectures. Their view is that IT organizations are becoming brokers of IT services, some of which are hosted internally, some of which reside in externally hosted Clouds.
