Organisations face a threefold challenge of an explosion in data, rising IT costs and increased security threats – and Cloud Computing is the solution to all three. So says EMC CEO Joe Tucci who argued at the EMC World conference in Las Vegas:
“I consistently hear three themes and pain points that IT organisations have. Budget dilemmas is one; they are being deluged in data, and from a board level down there is a tremendous awareness of the importance of security; and there is a lot of fear of being attacked. What addresses these three pain points? We believe the Cloud – IT-as-a-service.”
Tucci noted that nearly three-quarters of businesses IT spend goes on maintaining legacy IT infrastructure and applications.
“ IT organisations are not dissatisfied with amount of money they're spending on IT. They're dissatisfied that 73%, on average, goes to maintaining existing legacy. Only 23% is helping the company to be more competitive, more committed to its customers and to become more efficient. ”
For EMC, the shift to Cloud Computing represents a significant market opportunity, admitted Tucci:
“We are assembling best-of-breed technology, people and partners to help our customers move to the Cloud and maximise their big data access. If we do this successfully, that's how we move from being a $20bn company and can be one of the winners in this very disruptive wave of Cloud Computing.”
Specifically Tucci advocates the hybrid Cloud approach which he says involves:
“moving internal infrastructure to the private Cloud, and federating and taking service provider partners into your cloud topology. You can balance workloads across your own private data centres and across your public Cloud partners' data centres using the same sets of technology, while having all the control...The customer with the winning model is going to be both moving the internal infrastructure to [x86 server-based] private clouds and federating that with a public service partner.”
It's all about a massive transition, he suggested:
“I have seen infrastructure go through changes, I have seen applications go through changes, and of course I have seen end-user devices transform,. But I have never seem all go through a transformation at exactly the same point in time. This is a massive disruption. However, this will also present enterprises with massive opportunities. The hybrid Cloud will become the de-facto model, and with this brings an incredible amount of control and agility.”
He added:
“Enterprises are transforming their traditional IT infrastructures in x86-based private Clouds, and at the same time there is a big move to the public Cloud...There is also a move to transform applications, whether existing or new, into ones that run in virtual containers and in virtual machines. Finally, you have got the end-user platform layer. We are coming from a PC-only world, to a world where you have iPads, smartphones and a tremendous amount of choice. Companies are now looking to provision these in a singular way, and how they are being managed is going through a significant change. ”
But security concerns will remain, said Tucci, which plays to EMC's RSA Security division strengths:
“In 2010, 88% of Fortune 500 companies experienced botnet activity and 60% of Fortune 500 companies had e-mail addresses compromised...This is the number one issue [for corporate] board members concerned with IT - the security of information. So the key is going to be 'can I trust this Cloud Computing?', be it private, public or hybrid...We believe hybrid Cloud Computing can be even more secure than in the physical world. ”
