I try to follow the trends in the emerging cloud computing technologies and see how this revolutionary concept finally settles into mainstream. Cloud computing has been the hot buzz for over a year now with everyone trying to innovate or get a piece of the action. A recent article out of CNET (article here) shows that to concept is morphing again.
I thought when I opened the article that it was going to refer to the major players like Salesforce, Amazon, Google, etc. and their jockeying for position in the space. Instead the article discusses 3 of the new ways companies are looking at cloud computing.
There is the traditional thoughts on cloud computing that anyone who’s followed the technology has read about.
It is a call to jettison traditional IT altogether, and focus efforts on leveraging the work of professional providers of IT applications, platforms, infrastructure, and services. By this definition, it is indeed a complete change in IT paradigm.
Now there are emerging thoughts of the ‘internal cloud’.
The starting point for any enterprise with existing IT infrastructure investment, according to this camp, is an “internal cloud.” An internal cloud applies the concepts of cloud computing (on-demand resources, pay-as-you-go pricing, and the appearance of infinite scalability) to resources wholly owned by the enterprise consuming the service.
And finally, the ‘private cloud’ concept.
A private cloud consists of IT resources under the control of the enterprise consuming it. Those resources may be owned by the enterprise, consumed from a public cloud provider, or some combination of the two. The only requirement is that the resources be under the direct control of the customer under a unified management system, as opposed to each separately consumed offering being individually managed through the interfaces provided by their respective owners.
Personally, I subscribe to the original thought process of cloud computing, but one cannot ignore the IT investment already made in house and the possibilities of leveraging that capital. I feel a lot of companies already do the ‘private cloud’ approach, thought people are just starting to put a label on it.
Yet again, it will be interesting to see where this all goes. Stay tuned.
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