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Cloud Computing trends that will affect Cloud strategy through 2015
Continual monitoring of cloud computing trends, with regular updates to the enterprise’s cloud strategy, will be essential to avoid costly mistakes or miss market opportunities over the next few years, according to Gartner, Inc. Although the potential for cloud computing is significant, the breadth and depth of the impact, as well as the level of adoption over time, are uncertain and will require frequent review. “Cloud computing is a major technology trend that has permeated the market over the last two years. It sets the stage for a new approach to IT that enables individuals and businesses to choose how they’ll acquire or deliver IT services, with reduced emphasis on the constraints of traditional software and hardware licensing models,” said David Cearley, Vice President and Gartner Fellow. “Cloud computing has a significant potential impact on every aspect of IT and how users access applications, information and business services.”
“The trend and related technologies continue to evolve and change rapidly, and there is continuing confusion and misunderstanding as vendors increasingly hype ‘cloud’ as a marketing term,” said David Mitchell Smith, Vice President and Gartner Fellow. “This level of impact, confusion, uncertainty and change make cloud computing one of Gartner’s top 10 strategic technology trends to address.” Gartner has identified five cloud computing subtrends that will be accelerating, shifting or reaching a tipping point over the next three years and that users must factor into their planning processes:
The cloud promises to deliver a range of benefits, including a shift from capital-intensive to operational cost models, lower overall cost, greater agility and reduced complexity. It can also be used to shift the focus of IT resources to higher-value-added activities for the
business, or to support business innovation and, potentially, lower risks. However, these prospective benefits need to be examined carefully and mapped against a number of challenges, including security, lack of transparency, concerns about performance and availability, the potential for vendor lock-in, licensing constraints and integration needs. These issues create a complex environment in which to evaluate individual cloud offerings.
Hybrid computing refers to the coordination and combination of external cloud computing services (public or private) and internal infrastructure or application services. Over time, hybrid cloud computing could lead to a unified model in which there is a single “cloud” made up of multiple cloud platforms (internal or external) that can be used, as needed, based on changing business requirements.
Gartner recommends that enterprises focus near-term efforts on application and data integration, linking fixed internal and external applications with a hybrid solution. Where public cloud application services or custom applications running on public cloud infrastructures are used, guidelines and standards should be established for how these elements will combine with internal systems to form a hybrid environment.
As cloud computing adoption proliferates, so does the need for consumption assistance. A cloud services brokerage (CSB) is a service provider that plays an intermediary role in cloud computing. Interest in the CSB concept increased last year, and Gartner expects this trend to accelerate over the next three years as more individuals, whether they are in IT or a line-of-business unit, consume cloud services without involving IT.
Companies’ Software unprepared for IPv6 increased, rather than decreased, since then.
Research undertaken by SIG, the Software Improvement Group, has revealed that one in seven information systems could stop working with the imminent deployment of version six of the Internet Protocol (IPv6). Extension of internet means that software, equipment and networks will increasingly rely on the new IPv6 protocol. Organizations’ software should be able to work with both the new protocol and the old protocol (dual stack) within their software and IT infrastructures - but the research proves that many may not.
The research by SIG examined 145 software systems currently operational in Western Europe. On average, €3.4 million has been invested to build or procure each of these systems. In 2010 the ratio of information systems that could stop working was one in 12, meaning that the chance of failure has
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www.dcseurope.info I May 2012
In 2010, the forecast for exhaustion of IPv4 addresses was that it would occur in January 2012. Since then, the ‘exhaustion’ dates have been adapted and differ per regional registry. In Asia addresses are already exhausted, whilst in Europe the ‘exhaustion’ is expected in mid-2012. “In 2010 we anticipated that organizations would start working on projects to migrate to the next version of the Internet Protocol in readiness. However, contrary to common expectation, we have found that even more information systems could stop working after migration to the new protocol,” said Tobias Kuipers, Chief Technical Officer (CTO), SIG.
“Systems need to be modified to work with both protocols. If the modification is performed in a timely fashion, it is relatively
minor. If organizations only find out that systems stop working when testing or deploying them, they then need to perform an unscheduled repair project. This can run up to €1 million per system, depending on operational urgency”, he added.
“Most information systems are unaware of the specific version of the Internet Protocol being used, in the same way as electrical appliances do not ‘care’ how the electricity they use is transported to the power socket,” said Joost Visser, Head of Research at SIG. “This research clearly demonstrates that one in seven systems uses specific parts of the protocol that could cause them to fail if faced with an environment that uses both protocols. Fortunately it is reasonably simple to rewrite the software in such a way that it no longer cares what version of the protocol is used”
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