Forecast: Expect More Clouds

For those of you silently hoping that this whole "cloud" thing would just blow over, I'm afraid I've got some unpleasant news. 

If anything, the forecast clearly shows many more clouds in our future.

The latest piece of evidence comes from Forbes in the form of research sponsored by EMC, "Seeding The Cloud" which looks at cloud perceptions across a base of 235 IT executives from organizations with $500m revenue or more.

The Biggest Surprise?  No Surprise ...

As I read through the document, I found myself acknowledging and agreeing with most of Forbes' findings.  You may find much that's interesting in the various questions and responses -- there's a lot to think about and consider, but none of it particularly surprising.

• Senior IT leaders understand that cloud-based approaches can not only save money, but improve service levels and give them more flexibility.

• Private clouds are by far the preferred adoption model for most organizations.

• Many of the respondents are evaluating; several are experimenting, and a few claim successful implementations.

• And a very frank discussion around the barriers to adoption -- not all of which are technological in nature.

The Bechtel Story Is Priceless

If there's one anecdote that perfectly captures the essence of private cloud thinking, it'd be Geir Ramleth's before-and-after story.  If you think about it, Bechtel's nomadic population of knowledge workers are a perfect use case for private clouds -- and what lays beyond.

Rather than let each business team do their own thing with physical infrastructure, Bechtel delivers knowledge worker support "as a service".  And it's completely transparent as to whether that service is provided by Bechtel IT, or from an external service provider with IT as the intermediary.

And, yes, Bechtel has the same concerns about security, compliance, availability, control, etc. as any other large enterprise.

The Conclusion?

You're probably familiar with Gartner's infamous "hype cycle". 

Ostensibly, it's meant to reflect the industry as a whole.  But if you take the concept of cloud and apply it, you'll find plenty of data points at each and every stage -- mature practitioners at the "plateau of productivity", many pilot projects at the "slope of enlightenment" -- and, of course, large numbers swinging between the "peak of inflated expectations" and the "trough of disillusionment".

More outside observers are starting to realize that EMC -- directly and indirectly -- is essentially betting the farm on this industry transition.  No half-measures here -- and hopefully an absolute minimum of cloud-washing.

As William Gibson put it -- "The future is here.  It's just not widely distributed yet."

Comments

[Mike Foley]

Forecast: Cloudy with a chance of VBlocks. :)

[Lynette]

If one is considering cloud computing, they should read page 4 and 5 of '2600 The Hackerly Quarterly' Spring 2010, Vol 27, No 1

[Lynette]

Typo on the first. I meant, if one is considering cloud computing, they should read page 4 and 5 of '2600 The HACKER Quarterly' Spring 2010, Vol 27, No 1