Venyu Blog

Full disclosure: when it’s all boiled down there really is no parity between what’s known colloquially as a 12-step program and the future of cloud computing, but I am always intrigued by lists, typically Top 5 this, Top 10 that, and this article in Network World, “12 Ways The Cloud Changes Everything” is no exception.

In her report Network World’s Julie Bort—in concert with 4 IDC analysts attending the recent Cloud Leadership Forum conference in Santa Clara, California—discusses how each IDC analyst believes that the cloud will persist as a “massively disruptive technology” with implications on enterprises for years, and perhaps even longe

Among their collective (and provocative) observations:

The cloud is the third platform. Mainframe was the first platform, which in its heyday offered enterprises about 2,000 applications. Client/server came next, leading to the PC revolution, where the number of applications grew to the tens of thousands. Today, the cloud has enabled the work-anywhere mentality. It will create tens of millions of applications and spawn an explosion of new services, including mobile apps, social technology and analytics/big data (which gives rise to uses like smart grids and e-government).

The business will view IT’s role as the “internal app store.” The role of IT will shift from building custom apps and customizing large apps toward offering users a smorgasbord of services, accessible on any device, through clouds public and private. IT will need to reorient itself around the “IT services” concept. This movement began with the SOA idea some years back, but as SOA never completely succeeded with many enterprise application vendors, the cloud will progress the idea of IT as a collection of services once again.

Public clouds will become more important than private clouds. “A lot of IT executives I talk to are thinking, ‘How can I deploy cloud in my comfort zone, which is in my data center?’ That is looking the wrong way,” he says. Instead, IT executives need to be looking at this third platform for the new qualities it offers, not simply to re-create what the business is already doing on a potentially cheaper platform.

IT organizations will become cloud services brokers. As part of the new self-image IT will take on as the enterprise app store, IT will become the master of all cloud services agreements. Rather than business units going around IT to hire SaaS services, IT will find and bundle cloud services for business. IT will also perform asset management services that manage all IT resources used by the business, in-house, hybrid and via the cloud. This will also require more interaction and monitoring of vendors beyond the annual check-in, true-up or contract negotiation. IT organizations are providing the infrastructure that needs to service the business.

When it comes to the public cloud, vertical specialization will prevail. In the last wave, companies digitized their processes. Now, some of them see value in offering these processes as new cloud services for their industries. This analyst offered the example of Technicolor, which began life as a video post-production service that fixed colors and sound after a movie was edited and before it was replicated and sent to movie theaters. Because Technicolor digitized its methodology, it was able to offer cloud voice and video services.

You can’t avoid the personal cloud. End users already are building their own personal clouds, typically accessed through mobile devices like smartphones. These clouds are important to the users and the model by which they will want to receive the enterprise app store apps. With desktop virtualization, mobile applications and SaaS, IT can adapt to users’ expectations. Ultimately, end users are building their personal cloud to be a mix of their business apps and their personal apps. IT can’t stop that train and shouldn’t try to, even for compliance reasons. Much like the PC revolution, the people most successful at this next-generation, cloud-based IT will be the ones who know how to balance the enterprises’ needs with the users’ work styles.

And last but not least…

Cloud services foster innovation. The rapid adoption of cloud is another opportunity for the CIOs, network executives and the whole IT team to lead the business into faster, more economical IT tools.

And, to her credit, Bort completes her report with a fabulous line that’s bound to resonate with “Trekkies” everywhere: From the view of clouds in the year 2011, it looks like resistance is futile.

Truer words may never have been spoken.