In 2012, cloud computing is set to become mainstream in Asia Pacific. Indeed, approximately 30% of APAC organizations will have adopted some form of cloud computing by 2012.
Clearly, decision makers in most Asian organizations, recognize the benefits of cloud computing, which are manifold. These benefits include the ability to offer greater business agility, cost reduction and a switch in IT spending from capital investment to operational expenditure. Basically, cloud computing is becoming critical as a means of gaining a competitive advantage for today’s organizations. It is now a strategic issue.
Against this background the market for public cloud computing is set to reach $5.8 billion by 2015, growing at a CAGR of 39% between 2010 and 2015.
In 2012, the impact of the shift to cloud computing will become apparent. One of the first obvious effects of this type of technology is the cloud-driven transformation of whole industries. The IT industry itself is being transformed by cloud computing as consumers and businesses depend, to a greater extent, on smartphones and tablets. Increasingly, data resides remotely in datacenters managed by third parties. This data is accessed by devices such as tablets and smartphones which require a comparatively small amount of data to reside locally.
Other industries such as the media industry are being transformed as media content is increasingly streamed from ‘personal clouds’ and the downloading of files becomes unnecessary. In addition to this, access to media content from physical sources such as books and DVDs is declining. Cloud computing is impacting all major industries.
The channel is also being transformed by cloud computing. Businesses can source IT functionality by using a web browser. In many cases, they can bypass the traditional channel. Channel players will need to re-focus their offerings to match the needs of organizations that are shifting their IT resources to the cloud, and away from the reselling of commoditized products and the provision of basic support services.
Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) is set to be the new battleground in the cloud computing industry as PaaS vendors seek to attract developers to their platforms. Today, Force.com has a huge advantage over other platforms as a result of its early entry into the market. However, over the last 18 months or so, new platforms have come online, supported by major vendors such as Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, Google and VMWare. Two or three platforms can be expected to dominate as a critical mass of applications is developed on each.
Cloud brokers will emerge en masse, as organizations seek partners that can customize cloud applications for them. These cloud brokers will typically affiliate themselves with a particular platform such as Force.com. In other words, many more applications will be available from the public cloud and these applications will be much more highly customized than most of today’s cloud applications. In turn, industry fragmentation will occur as many more Software- as-a-Service (SaaS) vendors emerge, many with industry-specific applications. Today’s SaaS offerings are predominantly horizontal.
Private clouds will typically appear in the form of internal clouds that replicate the offerings of Infrastructure-as-a-Service vendors. Many large organizations will engage in datacenter transformation projects or build new datacenters. These organizations will seek to offer internal business units access to IT resources and gain some of the benefits of public cloud services. Chargeback mechanisms will be built in, resources will be accessed via browsers and apps, and the benefits associated with scalability and rapid provisioning will be integrated. These internal clouds will have several of the key characteristics of public clouds.
In summary, cloud computing will have a profound impact on the way businesses operate. The cloud model will engender innovation as well as giving businesses an opportunity to enhance existing business processes, thus making themselves more competitive.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Four Cloud Computing Myths
Today, cloud computing is becoming mainstream. In Asia Pacific, approximately two-thirds of organizations expect to increase their spending on cloud computing over the next year.
Clearly, decision makers in most Asian organizations, recognize the benefits of cloud computing, which are manifold. These benefits include the ability to offer greater business agility, cost reduction and a switch in IT spending from capital investment to operational expenditure. Basically, cloud computing is becoming critical as a means of gaining a competitive advantage for today’s organizations. It is now a strategic issue.
Nevertheless, adoption of cloud computing, in particular public cloud computing, is being hindered by several myths. The most common myths are:
• Cloud computing is less secure than on-premise alternatives.
• Cloud computing is only suitable for consumers and smaller organizations.
It is not suitable for enterprises.
• Cloud computing is not suitable for mission critical activities.
• Private clouds offer the benefits of cloud computing without the drawbacks.
Myth #1 – Cloud Computing is less secure than on-premise alternatives
Currently, there is no evidence to show that cloud computing is less secure than on-premise alternatives. In fact, there are strong arguments to suggest the opposite. Cloud computing is, in many ways, inherently more secure than on-premise alternatives. Most security breaches are caused by human error. In cloud computing enviroments, more activities are automated, reducing the possibility of human error. Additionally, on-premise systems are usually distributed by nature and therefore have more points of vulnerability. Cloud architectures are more centralized and have fewer points of vulnerability.
Cloud service providers also tend to focus, to a greater extent on security, than most individual organizations. Security breaches, for them, destroy their entire businesses and their credibility as service providers.
Major security breaches in recent years have had nothing to do with cloud computing. Sony, the US DoD, the UK government and others had major security breaches as a result of human error and poor process control. It is much easier to manage these two factors in cloud environments than in on-premise ones.
Myth #2 – Cloud Computing is only suitable for consumers and smaller businesses
Clearly, this statement is not correct as there are many examples of larger organizations using both private clouds and public cloud services. Typically, it is public cloud services that are perceived to be unsuitable for enterprise use. This perception can also be proved to be false.
The best known example of a company that runs on the public cloud is Netflix and it is a US$2 billion organization, hardly a small company. The bulk of its operations are run on Amazon EC2. In APAC, even major financial services firms use public cloud services. For example, BankWest, a subsidiary of Commonwealth bank uses SuccessFactors. Salesforce.com is widely used in enterprises as is Netsuite and Concur.
It is true that regulatory and compliance factors inhibit the use of public cloud services by enterprises, particularly in the financial services sector, across Asia Pacific. However, this only relates to customer data. There are many more applications in areas such as HR, ERP and accounting that lend themselves to the public cloud without causing regulatory challenges.
Myth #3 – Cloud Computing is not suitable for mission critical activities
It is true that, in many cases, cloud computing is not suitable for mission critical activities. However, there are examples of cloud computing being used for mission critical workloads and the number of such examples will grow rapidly. For example, Netflix uses Amazon for mission critical activities. Increasingly, we are seeing a variety of workloads shifting to the cloud, including the public cloud. Public cloud service providers are now offering improved SLAs, similar to other providers of services centered around mission critical activities.
The increased use of smart phones and tablets by senior executives and their demands to do their work on these devices is driving mission critical workloads into the cloud. These mobile devices carry minimal amounts of data and are designed to access data located remotely, in the cloud.
Public cloud services also offer high levels of business agility which is important with mission critical workloads.
Finally, 67% of server infrastructures are virtualized. Virtualization is a key step on the journey towards cloud computing. Mission critical workloads can be expected to share this journey.
Myth #4 – Private Clouds offer the benefits of cloud computing without the drawbacks
Security is often given as a drawback of public cloud computing that can be overcome by using private clouds. However, there is no evidence to suggest that private clouds are more secure than public clouds. In fact, most public clouds deploy best practice security policies and procedures. This is not always the case with private clouds.
There are a variety of different types of private clouds offering a few or many of the benefits of cloud computing. Typically, private clouds do not offer the following benefits that are usually offered by public cloud services:
• An Opex model instead of a Capex one.
• As much scalability as can be offered by public clouds.
• Economies of scale associated with sharing resources, which are found in
public clouds.
• Little need for support services and scarce skills.
In summary, there are reasons to be cautious about any shift in the way business is done and this includes the shift to cloud computing. However, over the past few years, outright falsehoods about cloud computing, specifically the public cloud model have spread widely and influenced perceptions within the business community. It is time for these falsehoods to be challenged more widely and for the benefits of cloud computing to be evaluated without prejudice.
Clearly, decision makers in most Asian organizations, recognize the benefits of cloud computing, which are manifold. These benefits include the ability to offer greater business agility, cost reduction and a switch in IT spending from capital investment to operational expenditure. Basically, cloud computing is becoming critical as a means of gaining a competitive advantage for today’s organizations. It is now a strategic issue.
Nevertheless, adoption of cloud computing, in particular public cloud computing, is being hindered by several myths. The most common myths are:
• Cloud computing is less secure than on-premise alternatives.
• Cloud computing is only suitable for consumers and smaller organizations.
It is not suitable for enterprises.
• Cloud computing is not suitable for mission critical activities.
• Private clouds offer the benefits of cloud computing without the drawbacks.
Myth #1 – Cloud Computing is less secure than on-premise alternatives
Currently, there is no evidence to show that cloud computing is less secure than on-premise alternatives. In fact, there are strong arguments to suggest the opposite. Cloud computing is, in many ways, inherently more secure than on-premise alternatives. Most security breaches are caused by human error. In cloud computing enviroments, more activities are automated, reducing the possibility of human error. Additionally, on-premise systems are usually distributed by nature and therefore have more points of vulnerability. Cloud architectures are more centralized and have fewer points of vulnerability.
Cloud service providers also tend to focus, to a greater extent on security, than most individual organizations. Security breaches, for them, destroy their entire businesses and their credibility as service providers.
Major security breaches in recent years have had nothing to do with cloud computing. Sony, the US DoD, the UK government and others had major security breaches as a result of human error and poor process control. It is much easier to manage these two factors in cloud environments than in on-premise ones.
Myth #2 – Cloud Computing is only suitable for consumers and smaller businesses
Clearly, this statement is not correct as there are many examples of larger organizations using both private clouds and public cloud services. Typically, it is public cloud services that are perceived to be unsuitable for enterprise use. This perception can also be proved to be false.
The best known example of a company that runs on the public cloud is Netflix and it is a US$2 billion organization, hardly a small company. The bulk of its operations are run on Amazon EC2. In APAC, even major financial services firms use public cloud services. For example, BankWest, a subsidiary of Commonwealth bank uses SuccessFactors. Salesforce.com is widely used in enterprises as is Netsuite and Concur.
It is true that regulatory and compliance factors inhibit the use of public cloud services by enterprises, particularly in the financial services sector, across Asia Pacific. However, this only relates to customer data. There are many more applications in areas such as HR, ERP and accounting that lend themselves to the public cloud without causing regulatory challenges.
Myth #3 – Cloud Computing is not suitable for mission critical activities
It is true that, in many cases, cloud computing is not suitable for mission critical activities. However, there are examples of cloud computing being used for mission critical workloads and the number of such examples will grow rapidly. For example, Netflix uses Amazon for mission critical activities. Increasingly, we are seeing a variety of workloads shifting to the cloud, including the public cloud. Public cloud service providers are now offering improved SLAs, similar to other providers of services centered around mission critical activities.
The increased use of smart phones and tablets by senior executives and their demands to do their work on these devices is driving mission critical workloads into the cloud. These mobile devices carry minimal amounts of data and are designed to access data located remotely, in the cloud.
Public cloud services also offer high levels of business agility which is important with mission critical workloads.
Finally, 67% of server infrastructures are virtualized. Virtualization is a key step on the journey towards cloud computing. Mission critical workloads can be expected to share this journey.
Myth #4 – Private Clouds offer the benefits of cloud computing without the drawbacks
Security is often given as a drawback of public cloud computing that can be overcome by using private clouds. However, there is no evidence to suggest that private clouds are more secure than public clouds. In fact, most public clouds deploy best practice security policies and procedures. This is not always the case with private clouds.
There are a variety of different types of private clouds offering a few or many of the benefits of cloud computing. Typically, private clouds do not offer the following benefits that are usually offered by public cloud services:
• An Opex model instead of a Capex one.
• As much scalability as can be offered by public clouds.
• Economies of scale associated with sharing resources, which are found in
public clouds.
• Little need for support services and scarce skills.
In summary, there are reasons to be cautious about any shift in the way business is done and this includes the shift to cloud computing. However, over the past few years, outright falsehoods about cloud computing, specifically the public cloud model have spread widely and influenced perceptions within the business community. It is time for these falsehoods to be challenged more widely and for the benefits of cloud computing to be evaluated without prejudice.
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