[ Cloud Computing ] Re: Big Players cornered the cloud?

Vince Marco wrote:
>> I think it's a mistake to think of "cloud" purely in terms of
>> outsourcing IT services to some giant internet data center. For large
>> companies I can see them thinking about cloud more in terms of a
>> way to
>> treat their internal infrastructure to get more flexibility and better
>> utilization. Also Internal cloud is much less scary from a
>> regulation/compliance perspective.
>>
>
> Agreed.
>
>>> However, on the flip side of this you have an opportunity for
>>> existing
>>> global companies to leverage their data centers by becoming "cloud"
>>> providers.
>> That's pretty much what Amazon did isn't it? The question for most
>> large
>> IT organizations will be, "if I have enough spare capacity to make the
>> idea of becoming a cloud service provider worthwhile, then what the
>> hell
>> am I doing with that much capacity in the first place?" ;-) Might make
>> sense for a few companies, but the vast majority will see internal
>> cloud
>> as an opportunity to reduce their infrastructure capacity and become
>> more efficient, rather than as business opportunity to sell "cloud
>> capacity"
>
>
> Yes it is. And the nature of technology is to replicate on success.

Yes, but Amazon has a business model that pretty much requires them to
have lots of spare capacity to meet peaks, i.e. given their business
model it's a requirement, so finding ways to utilize that infrastructure
during off-peak periods makes a lot of sense. For other companies with
less variable demand, they'll see the internal cloud as a way to help
match their equipment requirements more closely to their needs and spare
capacity will be taken off-line, rather going to the trouble of trying
to turn it into a externally consumable cloud resource.

>
> As far as capacity goes, since when does a company wait to build/
> purchase a DC until it is full or at capacity of the new DC? I'm just
> saying that companies are not going to just dump their existing DCs
> for an externally provided cloud just because it is the chosen path.

I think we are in violent agreement here ;-)

> It seems there will be a continuum of scenarios of implementing/
> deploying to clouds, not just 1, 2 or even 5 global cloud providers.
> I'd say more like 50 - 100. It makes sense to me that companies will
> be open to using external clouds for some services, but more prone to
> their own cloud for highly sensitive or secure services/data.

I agree there will be a number of public cloud providers, but my guess
is that they will be companies that are already offering co-lo and
outsourced data center space, rather than businesses that find they've
got some spare capacity after implementing an internal cloud.

>
> The path of least resistance always has a higher level of adoption. I
> don't think that path is the same for every service in every
> organization. But establishing internal clouds does make sense for
> operations efficiency in the same way it made sense to Google and
> Amazon.
>

Agreed, I think internal clouds will be pretty commonplace in a few
years, the question is whether companies that improved efficiency and
utilization decide to start offering external cloud services, my bet is
for the most part, the answer will be no.

--
Nik Simpson
http://dcsblog.burtongroup.com/

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