The
use of cloud computing is growing and by 2016, this growth will form
the bulk of new Information Technology spending, according to Gartner’s
latest report on the global IT market.
2016 will be a defining year for cloud as private cloud begins to
give way to hybrid cloud, and nearly half of large enterprises will have
hybrid cloud deployments by the end of 2017, the firm said.
Gartner describes cloud computing as a style of computing in which
scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered “as a
service,” using Internet technologies.
It heralds an evolution of business in positive and negative ways. It
has also become a hot industry term that has been used in many
contradictory ways.
The Research Vice-President at Gartner, Mr. Chris Howard, was quoted
as saying, “Overall, there are very real trends toward cloud platforms,
and also toward massively scalable processing.
“Virtualisation, service orientation and the Internet have converged
to sponsor a phenomenon that enables individuals and businesses to
choose how they’ll acquire or deliver IT services, with reduced emphasis
on the constraints of traditional software and hardware licensing
models.
“Services delivered through the cloud will foster an economy based on
delivery and consumption of everything from storage, computation, video
to finance deduction management.”
According to him, there is a flawed perception of cloud computing as
one large phenomenon; as cloud computing is actually a spectrum of
things complementing one another and building on a foundation of
sharing.
He said inherent dualities in the cloud computing phenomenon were
spawning divergent strategies for cloud computing success, adding that
the public cloud, hybrid clouds and private clouds now dot the landscape
of IT-based solutions.
“Because of that, the basic issues have moved from ‘what is cloud’ to ‘how will cloud projects evolve,’” he added.
Howard said a private cloud would get a lot of attention and had become the most popular form of cloud across various sectors.
However, the private cloud is not appropriate for all services and,
while the majority of midsize and large enterprises will deploy private
cloud services over the next few years, it will only be used for
specific services.
“In India, cloud services revenue is projected to have a five-year
projected compound annual growth rate of 33.2 per cent from 2012 through
2017 across all segments of the cloud computing market.
“Segments such as software as a service and infrastructure as a
service have even higher projected CAGR growth rates of 34.4 per cent
and 39.8 per cent,” Research Director at Gartner, Mr. Ed Anderson, was
quoted as saying.
He said, “Cloud computing continues to grow at rates much higher than
IT spending generally. Growth in cloud services is being driven by new
IT computing scenarios being deployed using cloud models, as well as the
migration of traditional IT services to cloud service alternatives.”
As enterprises build their cloud computing strategy, the programme
should be broken down into two primary IT centric work streams, two
supporting IT work streams and a strategic business work stream, the
report indicated, adding that the two primary work streams are the
enterprise as a consumer of cloud services, and the enterprise as a
provider of cloud services.
The report said, “When the enterprise is a consumer, the focus is on
the IT-related capabilities delivered as a service. The main goal is
determining if, when, where, how and why cloud services should be used.
The hardware and software used to implement the service are handled by
the service provider and are not a concern of the consumer.
“When the enterprise is a provider (building a private cloud for
instance), the focus shifts. Now the hardware, software and processes
used to implement a cloud service are a primary focus. Service
consumption only enters the equation to the extent a cloud service is
used as part of the supply chain to develop and deliver the cloud
service.”
The supporting enterprise work streams, according to the report,
include securing, managing and governing cloud services, and building
solutions based on cloud services.
It also stressed the need for software, appliances or services to be
in place to facilitate the consumption and use of cloud service, adding
that cloud solutions may use any combination of cloud infrastructure,
platform, software, information or business process services.
The report stated, “A final work stream focuses on the business.
Besides being a consumer of cloud services or a provider of cloud
services to an internal audience, there are opportunities to use the
cloud delivery model to provide services to customers and business
partners.
“This represents an evolution of the enterprise’s market-facing
website and Business-to-Business initiatives. IT should partner with the
business to explore where the service delivery model, agility and
elasticity attributes of the cloud style of computing support business
optimisation and innovation.
