As we pointed out recently, the use of cloud computing services will increase the amount of traffic that transits the WAN. As IT organizations begin to plan for how they will cope with that additional WAN traffic they face a curious challenge. That challenge is that there is a lot of ambiguity relative to what IT professionals mean when they use the phrase cloud computing. With that in mind, we will use this and the next two newsletters to help remove at least some of that ambiguity.
FAQ: Cloud computing demystified
We have found that when we talk to an IT vendor about cloud computing, many have a somewhat traditional view. That view is that cloud computing refers to obtaining a solution from a cloud computing service provider such as Salesforce.com or Rackspace by utilizing the Internet. While enterprise IT professionals have that same view of what is meant by cloud computing, it is somewhat less common. In fact, we recently gave a survey to 467 IT professionals.
The survey respondents were given eight possible characteristics of cloud computing and were asked to identify which of the characteristics were included in their definition of cloud computing. The three characteristics with the highest recognition were that cloud computing includes Software-as-a-Service (SaaS); cloud computing involves access to services over the Internet; and that as part of cloud computing, IT organizations can implement cloud computing concepts inside of their own IT organization.
The survey responses show an interesting balance between the traditional view of cloud computing and a view of cloud computing that has emerged over the last 18 months. The emerging view, IT organizations can implement cloud computing concepts inside of their own IT organization, is typically referred to as private cloud computing. Some purists, however, believe that the phrase private cloud computing is an oxymoron – that cloud computing by definition implies the use of services provided by a third party. The survey responses indicate that the purists’ view is out of step with how the majority of IT organizations view cloud computing.
In our next newsletter we will identify the goal and one of the primary characteristics of cloud computing. In the mean time, we would like to hear from you. If you have already implemented cloud computing, or if you expect to in the next year, what concerns do you have relative to the network and its ability to support cloud computing?
