Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing is arising from a growing set of extremely efficient, massively scalable multi-tenant data centers offering organizations an alternative way of building, deploying and selling IT services at a significantly lower price point. Customers pay for these services on a pay as you go, usage based model that ramps as you grow. Key factors leading to low cost Cloud Computing are:

• Significant advances in data center management automation
• Better utilization of resources through system virtualization (for servers, network, and security)
• Greatly increased data center density due to multi-core chips and blades
• Continual reduction in Internet latency and bandwidth costs has changed the feasibility of using remote system

Several other factors are driving cloud computing adoption:

• Increasingly sophisticated RIAs are eliminating the rationale for most desktop based application
• Acceptance of using SaaS (Software as a Service) applications in lieu of installed package applications
• Growth in quality and breadth of open source software makes it ideal for large scale deployments

Increasingly, data centers are being commoditized and economies of scale reaped by massive cloud providers will cause consolidation to a handful of vendors. Reduced computing costs, the availability of open source, and subscription based solutions are shifting the economics of 3rd party software providers. More specialized solutions can be offered economically increasing the options to buy rather than build.

To improve agility, software applications and components will increasingly be procured off-the-shelf and integrated into enterprise architectures and mashed up to create custom applications. Together, both data center commoditization and increased availability of Internet accessible applications will reduce costs of operations, increase outsourcing of lower value-add technology processes to 3rd party providers, and reduced time to market for high value-add applications allowing IT to better align with business needs.

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Several taxonomies of the cloud computing landscape can be found, but most were created from the perspective of vendors that are part of the landscape and not from the perspective of enterprise IT, the consumers of cloud services and software. Our taxonomy helps IT leadership understand the world of cloud computing.

We separated the cloud offerings into four categories. Infrastructure services, Platform services and Software services represent usage based services while Cloud software can be used to create customize clouds. Infrastructure services provide building blocks that can be molded to run different application servers, packaged applications, grids, etc., which can be used to host applications. Platform services offer a ready built infrastructure and application framework than can be used for building and running applications. Software services are applications or components that can be used as an end application or used as part of a custom solution. Cloud software is off-the-shelf software that can be used to create an internal cloud or in some cases can be used to customize infrastructure services to mold a custom cloud solution.

This will be a living taxonomy, to keep up with the rapidly evolving Cloud Computing landscape. We will continue to keep it updated via our own research, as well as your submissions. If you know of a cloud offering that should be added please leave us a comment below.

Cloud computing disruption of IT will take years to reach fruition. We see this disruption as having three phases as solutions mature and the vendor landscape is reshaped. We characterize the three as:

• Functional - In this phase vendor offerings being adopted will primarily be horizontal in nature. Infrastructure services and platform services will appeal to the masses. Gaps will remain for Industry specific needs (regulatory, performance, etc.) that will gradually be filled to broaden their acceptance. Adoption by enterprises will be measured, focusing on non-core application areas and resource intensive business problems
• Industry - Offerings will increasingly appeal to specific industries. Regulatory and SLA gaps in early offerings will be filled. Vendors offering industry specific solutions will deepen penetration of the cloud within enterprises.
• Virtualized enterprises - Enterprise IT will span a collection of cloud offerings from multiple vendors. Custom applications will be composites of off-the-shelf offerings integrated with and mashed to create new solutions. Enterprises will dynamically decide on resources to use based on current pricing and SLAs required.