Enterprises Remain Focused On Internal Clouds In 2013: Research

TheInfoPro, a service of 451 Research, released its latest Cloud Computing Study, indicating that 47 percent of those interviewed had internal cloud projects planned for 2013. Conducted during the second half of 2012, TheInfoPro study identifies major initiatives and explores several fundamental areas, including implementation plans for more than 12 technologies, macro IT influences transforming the sector, drivers of cloud adoption, and provider-selection criteria. This annual study is based on extensive live interviews with primary decision-makers at large and midsize enterprises in North America and Europe.

Peter ffoulkes, TheInfoPro’s Research Director for Cloud Computing, said key trends from TheInfoPro Cloud Computing study include:

The cloud has really become a proxy for internal transformation, as adoption of technologies like virtualisation and efforts to radically standardise and consolidate have all been classified as ‘cloud’ initiatives.

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In 2013, enterprises will remain focused on building internal environments that mimic the functionality of highly efficient cloud service providers like Amazon (for example). Results of our Wave 4 survey validate this assumption, as 47 percent of those interviewed said that the internal cloud was amongst their top-two cloud related projects in 2013.

Despite conventional wisdom, many enterprises remain sceptical as to whether they can actually save money by using the public cloud. Many of the organisations have more clarity about the potential cost savings of their internal private cloud initiatives. End-users expect greater savings from their internal cloud efforts, with 36 percent expecting savings of between 1 percent and 10 percent from their internal cloud efforts, and that much of the expected savings will come as a result of increased automation.

The majority of enterprises remain in the initial stages of their internal transformation. 64 percent of those interviewed indicated that they remain in the initial phases – standardisation, consolidation and virtualisation – of the internal cloud journey with 61 percent in the virtualisation phase.

47 percent of those interviewed said that they are facing significant roadblocks in their quest to move beyond virtualisation toward automation, 34 percent cited non-technical issues (organisation / budget, People / Time and Buy-In / Resistance to Change) and 13 percent said technology issues would likely thwart their efforts.

The market for cloud platforms today is small – of those responding to the survey, only 26 percent said they currently are using a cloud platform. However, the future looks bright, as 40 percent of respondents said they are in-pilot and will deploy in the next 18 months.

Amazon remains the clear leader in the IaaS space. When asked to identify their existing cloud service providers, 19 percent of respondents chose Amazon, while 8 percent chose Verizon and 5 percent Rackspace. The opportunity to participate in a rapidly growing market coupled with the necessity of defending existing markets, has brought in competitors from a variety of market segments including telecommunications, Internet infrastructure providers (e.g. Amazon and Google) and traditional hosters.

“The Digital Infrastructure of the future will provide CIOs with an assortment of service delivery venues, which will enable users to schedule or automate the delivery of workloads to the most suitable internal or external clouds depending on workload characteristics, SLAs and policy requirements,” said Peter ffoulkes. “As IT organisations complete their infrastructure virtualisation and automation projects and turn toward cloud initiatives, there will be significant upside opportunity for a veritable host of cloud service and cloud enabling technology vendors over the next two years.”