Despite the economies of scale offered by public cloud providers,
private
cloud services will prevail for the foreseeable future while public
cloud
offerings mature, according to Gartner. Through 2012, IT
organizations will
spend more money on private cloud computing investments than on
offerings from
public cloud providers.
“The hype of cloud computing is that existing IT
architectures and processes
can be simply replaced by the cloud," said Tom Bittman, VP and
distinguished
analyst at Gartner. “The reality of the future IT
organization, however, is
somewhat a combination. Larger enterprises will continue to have an
IT
organization that manages and deploys IT resources internally, some
of which
will be ‘private clouds.’ IT organizations 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.”
Private cloud services will be a stepping stone to future public
cloud
services and, over time, will span both private and public cloud
resources in a
hybrid manner. For many large enterprises, private cloud services
will therefore
be required for many years, perhaps decades, as public cloud
offerings
mature.
Gartner analysts said appropriate investments in private cloud
computing will
also make it easier for enterprises to gradually use public cloud
services in
the future. For services destined to be cloud at some point in
time, enterprises
should evaluate the return on investment from developing private
cloud services,
while waiting for external offerings to mature.
“Many of the investments in private cloud computing will
prepare the
enterprise for public cloud computing. These investments are not
just technology
changes—they are also process, cultural and business
interface changes,” said
Bittman. “Making these changes sooner rather than later will
help enterprises to
take better cloud sourcing decisions and potentially make for an
easier
transition to public cloud computing.”
Enterprises also need to be aware that some IT services are
destined for the
cloud computing style and others are destined for more integration
and intimacy
with the business. Once it is established that a particular service
is destined
for cloud computing, a decision needs to be made as to whether it
makes more
business senses to wait for a mature cloud service to appear or to
develop
private cloud services sooner.
“Each cloud service will have a different road map for the
future—some should
be focused on tighter integration, intimacy customization and
differentiation
for the business,” Bittman said. “Others should be
focused on independence, easy
interfaces, standardization and eliminated customization and are
therefore
potential cloud service candidates.”
In order to make these choices, Bittman said that large enterprises
will need
to create dynamic sourcing teams that make day-to-day decisions
about sourcing.
These teams will orchestrate the services in the cloud to meet
business needs
and, as such, will need to be business and technology savvy.
Smaller businesses are unlikely to have the skills needed to
orchestrate
cloud services efficiently and instead will use service brokers
that will take
responsibility for the overall service-level requirements in the
business. They
will likely be skilled in specific industries and will be able to
monetize their
value by having deeper skill in the cloud market than small
businesses can
muster, and by leveraging a rapidly changing market to continue to
find the best
deals to keep costs as low as possible.
Bittman highlighted the following three-point action plan for CIOs
and
infrastructure and operation leaders as they contemplate the future
of cloud
services in their organizations:
Now
Experiment with the cloud and discover where it is already taking
place in
the enterprise
Lead a cross-organization cloud initiative
Next 90 Days
Use virtualization as a catalyst to drive IT modernization
Portfolio your services
Develop strategies for services and private cloud
Identify new opportunities for the enterprise that are emerging due
to cloud
computing
Next 12 Months
Develop an overall cloud computing strategy
Build a dynamic sourcing organization