In practice, companies are turning to a variety of vendor cloud offerings. Cisco, EMC, and VMware have a joint initiative called the Virtual Computing Environment. You can find HP’s cloud offerings here. NetApp also has a private cloud offering, here. Dell too offers a cloud starter pack with Ubuntu, an open source Linux player, and Dell servers here. Red Hat, a leading Linux provider, also has a private cloud product, CloudForms coach bags, details here.
A 2011 IBM study noted that 55% of business managers were embracing to speed business transformation. They were just a few steps behind CIOs, 60% of whom in the same study planned to use cloud computing.
For the business, this means it can respond to new opportunities or to changes in the market fast. In effect, the business no longer is constrained by how long the conventional IT process takes. With advanced clouds, which can include a self-service catalog of IT capabilities, business managers can deploy applications or databases themselves, with a few clicks of the mouse. No programming required; just click the desired configuration options.
At this point IBM, with the possible exception of VMware, can probably boast the most private cloud experience with 2000 successful private cloud engagements in 2010.
The journey to the private clouds starts with virtualization. Server virtualization now is widely accepted for the consolidation, efficiency, and cost savings it allows. With a private cloud not only are servers virtualized but also storage and network devices, which further increase utilization. From there you add automated provisioning of IT resources, often with a self-service component. Then the private cloud needs to be monitored and managed to ensure top performance. In later stages, the organization can choose to orchestrate the workflow. Finally, you may want to meter and rate resource usage for chargeback.
Getting to the cloud, particularly a private cloud, has proven to be a challenge. Starting with virtualization as the foundation, IBM now lays out a simple progression companies can follow through basic to advanced cloud capabilities.
Among the key benefits of private clouds are the agility and efficiency they bring to IT-related business processes. For example, it usually takes one day to install a database; in the cloud it takes about 12 minutes. Similarly, setting up testing can takes weeks through conventional IT; through a cloud it takes less than half an hour. Most importantly, designing and deploying business applications conventionally can take months; with a cloud it takes a few days, maybe a couple of weeks at most.
To simplify and speed this process, IBM offers SmartCloud Entry, which is delivered as the IBM Starter Kit for Cloud. This may be the least expensive way to get into cloud computing. IBM claims you don’t need to make a big new investment. Rather, organizations can get started with the same budget they would allocate for an ordinary server refresh. SmartCloud Entry does not require special servers, industry standard x86 servers with VMware as the virtualization engine is sufficient.
Another 2011 IBM study of midmarket trends, here, listed the primary benefits midsize businesses are gaining through cloud adoption. These include cost savings, ease of management, redundancy, uptime, rapid provisioning, flexible pricing, and more.
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