Current Analysis On Cloud Services: New Economic Reality Or Hype?

Managed IT Services delivered through the cloud promise business customers a flexible, cost-effective and, in some cases, technically superior alternative to conventional technology models. Are these services living up to this promise?

That’s one of the questions raised in a new Current Analysis Advisory Report, “Playing in the Cloud: New IT Services Reality or More Vapour in an Already Foggy Economy?”

Current Analysis principal analyst for Managed IT Services Amy Larsen DeCarlo says while there is plenty of hype around the cloud concept, there is also some truth to the talk about it representing a real paradigm shift.

According to Larsen DeCarlo, the theory is that cloud service providers possess the technology infrastructure, economies of scale and expertise to deliver managed IT offerings to business clients at a fraction of what it would cost customers to build and operate them internally. The current cloud services era evolved from the days of application service providers (ASPs) and can even trace its roots back to the mainframe computing model.

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But while the cloud services concept mirrors its predecessors, the underlying technology has advanced to support more sophisticated, secure and cost-effective delivery models. The model benefits from advances including improvements in the underlying networks; virtualisation technology that makes it possible to run secure, stable and economical shared infrastructure; software tools that developers use to create applications; and security that effectively balances control with accessibility. These and other improvements lay the groundwork for the kind of dynamic cloud-based services businesses want now.

Also in the report, Larsen DeCarlo examines the strengths and weaknesses of companies best positioned to make the most of the opportunities in the cloud. These providers represent a broad spectrum of services: from dedicated Web-based offerings that may be tailored to a particular client to true multi-tenant pay-per-use solutions. The report concludes with vendor and end-user recommendations.

For a complimentary copy of the full report “Playing in the Cloud: New IT Services Reality or More Vapour in an Already Foggy Economy?” go to: http://www.currentanalysis.com/f/2009/mits/