Change is in the air this week as news from around the Web shows that Cisco is expanding its hybrid cloud management solution, Rackspace edges away from public cloud, Oracle wants to be a cloud powerhouse and NTT is revamping its cloud offering. Also, US vs. Europe becomes an issue with cloud pricing. Read on for our news around the Web.
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This week, we offer some of the best cloud insights we’ve learned from trusted sources. Read how to choose the best cloud for your app, learn about Verizon’s new cloud services path or how continued security concerns still plague the cloud.
How to choose the best cloud for your app
How should I match the applications in my portfolio with the most appropriate cloud? This question is becoming increasingly common in enterprise IT organizations today, and it can be difficult to answer. Often the decision depends on the sensitivity of the data within the application. At other times, public versus private cloud considerations are paramount. Other factors influencing the decision include business goals and whether or not speed or price must be optimized. Read the article at InfoWorld.
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I read with interest a blog post from Dave Bartoletti, an analyst at Forrester on cloud management in a hybrid world. He said:
It’s inevitable that the future look of enterprise IT will be a hybrid mix of on- and off-premises services. 45% of companies rely on at least one Software-as-a-Service application today, and a third of companies are already using some form of Infrastructure-as-a-Service at Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Rackspace, GoGrid, and the like…
Hybrid cloud shouldn’t add more management complexity, it should simplify IT operations. Get out ahead of the complexity that cloud introduces by taking a close look at your IT management processes now with a hybrid future in mind. One way to get to cloud faster is to not only look at the cloud as a place to build new applications, but a place to run existing applications more efficiently and effectively. Look for hybrid cloud solutions that extend the tools you already have in place today into the public cloud.
To capture public cloud business, service providers need to ensure they have checked off three key steps.
Align the Business Strategy to the Cloud Strategy
The first step is where many service providers fall down. Service providers must identify the:
Service providers are often acknowledging they need to offer cloud, without actually identifying how the criterion for success is defined. Being able to answer the above points will help service providers to journey down the most suitable path to actually offer a cloud offering in line with their business goals. This will in turn help them capture an untapped market.
Although enterprise spend on public cloud services will remain a small proportion of overall IT spend (currently 3% according to 451 Group), it still represents a $15 billion revenue opportunity through 2015 (even bigger if some analysts are to be believed). Furthermore, there is a growing body of evidence that shows an ever increasing number of organisations are on the path to purposeful public cloud adoption.
Over one quarter of all respondents to a recent 451 Group survey said that they were planning a route to public cloud adoption. This is great news for cloud service vendors. These vendors should start to see a clearer path for revenue growth. However, to capitalise on the growth opportunity, the cloud service vendor has to adapt to the emergent demand of the enterprise customer.
Cloud service vendors have to realise that enterprises will want it ‘their way’ which is likely to look very similar to the ‘current way’. This means that they will request a degree of autonomy and control over their use of public clouds. This includes self-service provisioning, customisation, control over user specific access privileges as well as consumption and cost.
