Businesses are more likely to invest in private Clouds over the next couple of years than take a leap of faith into public alternatives, but over time a hybrid model will emerge.
Research firm Gartner predicts that until at least 2012, more investment will be put into private services than public Cloud providers, although it sees a significant role emerging for such public offerings over time.
“For now, private Cloud Computing will not just be a viable term, it will be a significant strategic investment for most large organisations.” said Phil Dawson, research vice president at Gartner. “We predict that through 2012, more than 75% of organisations use of Cloud Computing will be devoted to very large data queries, short-term massively parallel workloads, or IT use by start-ups with little to no IT infrastructure.”
According to Gartner, there are some critical issues to consider before investing in private Clouds though, most notably around the area of potential lock-in. Because private Clouds are deployed for approved members only, making access for the general public or businesses can be difficult.
Gartner also notes that private Clouds can themselves be built on top of a public cloud infrastructure or in a hybrid model. In fact, over time the choice between public and private will blur into a hybrid approach. “Larger organisations will continue to have an IT organisation that manages and deploys IT resources internally. Some of these will be private clouds, but not all,” argued Dawson.
“IT departments will also take on IT service sourcing responsibility – determining when to leverage external providers, when to deploy internally, and when to leverage both for specific services,” he added. “With Cloud offerings coming in the form of services, this means that the IT organisation will be replaced by relationships to many Cloud Computing service providers, each for one or a handful of services.”
Although some IT services are destined for Cloud Computing delivery, Gartner suggests that others are destined for more integration and intimacy with the business. These services are business differentiators and tightly integrated with the business. These will change often and are integrated and customised.
Post new Comment