{"id":532418,"date":"2010-04-18T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2010-04-18T16:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=112843"},"modified":"2010-04-18T12:00:56","modified_gmt":"2010-04-18T16:00:56","slug":"the-cloud-in-the-enterprise-big-switch-or-little-niche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/532418","title":{"rendered":"The Cloud in the Enterprise: Big Switch or Little Niche?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Cloud computing \u2014 where mega-data centers serve up webmail, search results, unified communications, or computing and storage for a fee \u2014 is top of mind for enterprise CIOs these days. Ultimately, however, the future of cloud adoption will depend less on the technology involved and more on strategic and economic factors.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, Nick Carr, author of “The Big Switch<\/a>,” posits that all computing will move to the cloud, just as electricity \u2014 another essential utility \u2014 did a century ago. As Carr explains, enterprises in the early industrial age grew productivity by utilizing locally generated mechanical power from steam engines and waterwheels, delivered over the local area networks of the time: belts and gears. As the age of electricity dawned, these were upgraded to premises-based electrical generators \u2014 so-called dynamos<\/a> \u2014 which then \u201cmoved to the cloud\u201d as power generation shifted to hyper-scale, location-independent, metered, pay-per-use, on-demand services: electric utilities. Carr\u2019s prediction appears to be unfolding, given that some of the largest cloud service providers have already surpassed the billion dollar-milestone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, at least one tech industry luminary <\/a>has called the cloud \u201ccomplete gibberish,\u201d and one well-respected consulting group<\/a> is claiming that the cloud has risen to a \u201cpeak of inflated expectations\u201d while another has found real adoption of infrastructure-as-a-service to be lower than expected<\/a>. And Carr himself does admit that \u201call historical models and analogies have their limits.\u201d<\/p>\n

So will enterprise cloud computing represent The Big Switch, a dimmer switch or a little niche? At the GigaOM Network\u2019s annual Structure conference in June<\/a>, I\u2019ll be moderating a distinguished panel that will look at this issue in depth, consisting of Will Forrest, a partner at McKinsey & Company and author of the provocative report \u201cClearing the Air on Cloud Computing;\u201d James Staten, principal analyst at Forrester Research and specialist in public and private cloud computing; and John Hagel, director and co-chairman of Deloitte Consulting’s Center for the Edge, author and World Economic Forum fellow. We may not all agree, but the discussion should be enlightening, since ultimately, enterprise decisions and architectures will be based on a few key factors:<\/p>\n

Drivers and Barriers:<\/strong> These can include enhanced flexibility and agility from on-demand, scalable resources; reduced total cost via optimal hybrid solutions; accelerated time-to-market via ready-to-ware applications and innovation platforms; application architecture constraints and requirements; security and more.<\/p>\n

Development and Deployment Options:<\/strong> Solutions can be built in-house from scratch; use pre-built software on owned, dedicated infrastructure; go all cloud; be outsourced or be the result of a combination of such approaches.<\/p>\n