The cloud computing

In today’s globalized and volatile times, more than ever, it is necessary for businesses

around the world to secure their competitive advantage. Companies must leverage

their core competencies and be agile enough to evolve with the environment,

especially in IT.

Cloud computing is a collection of Internet-based or private-network services providing

users with scalable, abstracted IT capabilities, including software, development

platforms and virtualized servers & storage. Although not new as a concept, Cloud

computing is new in its generalized application to all IT services and is the next step

in the relentless journey of corporate IT. Given its profound impact, Cloud computing cannot be ignored.

Defining the Cloud

The Cloud is a collection of internet based or private network

Services providing users with scalable, abstracted IT capabilities, including software, development platforms and virtualized servers

& storage..

 

These characteristics are the basis of our definition of Cloud computing: The Cloud

is a collection of Internet-based services providing users with scalable, abstracted IT

capabilities, including Software, Development Platforms and Hardware.

Where has the Cloud come from?

The Cloud is not as new as it seems. The Cloud symbol that permeates virtually all

Cloud computing literature is more than 50 years old, as indeed are the concepts

that were recognized as early as the 1950s in the work done by AT&T in the area of

telephony networking.

At that time, AT&T had already begun to develop an architecture and system where

data would be located centrally and accessed by businesses through redesigned

telephones and an updated telephone network. While the service did not materialize,

the concepts and advantages were understood and relentlessly pursued through to

this day.

The pursuit of centralized, abstracted IT services progressed over the decades with

the advent and adoption of technologies such as Internet Service Providers (ISP –

where servers were located at the Internet access point), and Application Service/

Infrastructure Providers (ASP – where infrastructure was rented to a customer at an

offsite location, but used most of the time by the one, paying customer). Other IT

services historically offered include Time Sharing Systems, Co-Location, Hosting, and

Outsourcing.

As with any evolution, the step from ASP to Cloud computing is subtle yet disruptively

important. While ASPs managed the offsite infrastructure for a customer, they

were bound to the concept that the infrastructure capacity was predetermined

and inflexible; ASP customers were required to declare the quantity of compute

and storage capacity needed up front. If the customer’s computing needs grew or

contracted, the hardware had to be scaled up or down with an associated delay and

up-front investment.

One of the main principles of Cloud computing, from Software-as-a-Service to Storage

on demand, is that the computing capacity varies immediately and transparently with

the customer’s needs, and clients no longer must plan, configure, and deploy fixed

quantities of computing equipment, with associated costs, lead-times, and financial

risks.

Indeed, from this evolution we find ourselves at the cusp of a significant

transformation in Information Technology. Companies that are knowledgeable and

prudently adopt Cloud computing will recognize significant benefits, while those that

do not will be left ‘a step behind’ and see their competitors pull ahead as a result of

lower operational costs and increased flexibility and deployment capabilities.

Where is the Cloud today?

Cloud computing encompasses an increasingly broad array of uses deeply embedded

 in both our personal and professional lives, with the distinction not always very clear:         

Personal applications of Cloud computing provide the most universally accessible

understanding of the Cloud. With the common acceptance of applications like Gmail,

Hotmail, Facebook, MySpace we are already familiar with the advantages. Indeed,

Gmail, to take but one example, offers virtually limitless space to its users, to whom

the details of the underlying software and hardware are completely and purposefully

obscured.

Consumer Cloud applications were born out of the dot-com bubble at the turn of

the century and have matured into fully accepted services connecting consumers to

buyers. These former start-ups, such as Google, eBay and Amazon, have become

leaders in the Cloud computing industry and are poised to expand into and dominate

the Business Cloud application market.

Business Cloud applications were carried to the CXO’s attention with the advent,

growth and acceptance of companies such as salesforce.com and NetSuite. Business

Clouds, which deliver business value with a reduced IT footprint, are poised to change

the way enterprises deploy and manage their IT assets and business processes

 

To better understand the disruptive impact of the Cloud, we must look at the immediate impacts of the Cloud’s four

main characteristics.

Alternatively, we can examine the issues that we take as ‘necessary evils’ surrounding today’s enterprise IT

landscape. We are all familiar with the IT stack of large enterprises, which typically contains business-facing Software

applications (e.g. Oracle, SAP, Microsoft), development platforms used by developers to build custom applications

(e.g. Microsoft .Net, Java, C/C++, COBOL) and the underlying Infrastructure (storage, servers, network) upon which

the Software and Platforms run.

With most of these IT capabilities being conceived, set up and managed on the company’s own premises, we have

accepted the inherent effort and challenge required to ‘keep it all running’.

In other words, we have learnt to live with the fact that our enabling IT requires our having to put up with a host of

cumbersome necessities. The power of Cloud computing becomes clear when we imagine not having to invest the

time and resources to accomplish many of the tasks we now take for granted, as illustrated in the figure below.

Cloud families

The following figure depicts these three Cloud families, with leading players and emerging sub-families.

Other groupings of Cloud offerings can be made such as the distinction between public (or vendor), private,

and hybrid Clouds.

Essentially, these differentiate the degree to which Cloud computing is externalized from the organization. While the

optimal cloud computing architecture will depend on the specific business needs of the client and the capabilities of

the client’s technology, today, only the largest organizations can hope to leverage true benefits using private Clouds

exclusively.

Drivers and inhibitors

Cloud computing has clear advantages – capitalizing on these and

overcoming remaining inhibitors will allow its mainstream adoption.

Cloud computing exhibits obvious advantages linked to its characteristics:

• The pay-as-you-go model and multi-tenancy lead to increased ROI with quicker

payback and lower upfront investment

• High abstraction and immediate scalability lead to accelerated deployment, greater

flexibility, and greater focus on core competencies.

Cloud providers can be classified into 3 different families: SaaS - PaaS - IaaS, with each family divided into sub-segments.

 

 

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