A decade is a long time for a big Tech idea to grow up and dominate the world or die down and stay buried. Cloud Computing seem to take much longer to make a choice. Is the hype phase still going strong? How much of it has turned real?
Since the days when Amazon attempted to change the world with its elastic cloud launch nearly a decade ago, top tech companies and tech consumers did many different things. Some laughed at it initially, some created fear, uncertainty and doubt, some called whatever they offered as cloud, and some others pumped in serious money to explore. Google can help us walk through the maze of the decade-long history with many articles titled ‘hype versus reality’ including the one in CIO magazine as early as 2008. So, the jury was on all through these years. The question now is how much of the Hype turned into Reality, after a decade?
Cloud Hype: Omnipresent & elastic
The biggest dream ever sold by Cloud evangelists is its availability anytime anywhere one needed it along with its ability to scale on how much one wanted. Subscribe don’t Spend all upfront was the added tagline. Early days were tough for providers with barely used server farms and confusing for consumers with many fears and doubts about security, last mile connectivity and control of assets.
However, the dream was attractive and packaging was just right. It was helped by the recession years (2008 through 2010) that were so cruel on businesses to cut costs and postpone capital spends. Add the dogged staying power on display from Cloud Computing service provider firms like Amazon and Microsoft. You have the right climate for the dream to take deep root.
Apart from the cult names of Amazon, Salesforce, and Microsoft, there any many other players – like Verizon, IBM, Google, VMWare, Virtustream - long list of nearly hundred plus, that are showing signs of long-term survival and growth. While most are cloud infrastructure focused, many other biggies like Oracle, Google, SAP is now driving on the Cloud SaaS & Platform lanes that Salesforce set off the traffic on.
With all this, we should agree Cloud Computing did seem to take root. It did deliver on the dream, but for a limited market. So here is my score on how much of this claim turned into reality: 4 on 5.
Cloud Hype: All worlds’ infrastructure taken
Private, public, hybrid or yours, mine, and ours. The race to call everything and rename everything as Cloud has been fascinating. There is a lot of old wine in many new bottles. Many shades of lipstick are now put on Pigs.
There were experts who said all the world’s dedicated data centers would become a cloud in 15 to 20 years. We were told that the private Data centers are dead and we should move along and over to cloud or we will be left behind with legacy steel in our compound that might not even sell as scrap. The date is fast approaching in 2020. Where are we on this hype?
What is the estimate of world’s data center infra moving onto the cloud? No one can tell for sure. Estimates could be anywhere from 5 to 15%. Long way to go and the date with 2020 is sure to be missed. So here is my score on how much of this claim turned into reality: 1 on 5.
Cloud Hype: Never fails
The Tech Clouds don’t have linings, silver or black. Cloud Computing never fails and is always running. It has backups being backed up and is built to never fail. This hype did not stand with big players like Amazon acknowledging outages (starting in 2011, ) and the server down times most of us experience once a while with many Cloud app and SaaS players. Cloud outages were reported by almost all players like Amazon, Verizon, Google, Apple and Microsoft.
The outages were played down, called partial, and recovery has been sharp in most case. Not much data lost, and that’s a positive. Add the positive of an apology and probably a discount.
The question on most CIO’s mind today is how many dependencies on Cloud is too much? What is the right ratio to own on-premise? 80: 20 or 30:70? A scenario with 100% on a cloud is probably too farfetched. So, Never Say Never for failure. Here is my score on how much of this claim turned into reality: 2 on 5.
Cloud Hype: Saves Money & Stays New
Pay as you go has been a real attractive mantra, for all those who couldn’t or wouldn’t make the down payment. Not only pay as you go, it is also about using the new. Cloud Computing has been a winner on this front playing on the same psyche the lease financing industry played but in a much better way. Renting has never been such a craze. Why should we spend big upfront and live with ageing computing infrastructure?
It opened up a whole new dimension in managerial decision making. Imagine Saving money while staying up-to-date on technology, the formulation is irresistible. Add the option to shift from one cloud vendor to another. No board would be keen to retain a CIO who has not put together a positive brief on how virtualization and cloud could be put to use. The pressure on CXO is high to deliver on this hype but seems there is quite a distance to run. Here is my score on how much of this claim turned into reality: 2 on 5.
There are many more Hype factors that need a reality check of a decade. Some of these are turning to be fascinating subjects to look into. The collateral damage being done by this Cloud Computing phenomenon to traditional habits as it grows into its teens is one such subject. The innovative startups and platforms that adopted and turned the cloud into their business model are another subject for another time.
Since the days when Amazon attempted to change the world with its elastic cloud launch nearly a decade ago, top tech companies and tech consumers did many different things. Some laughed at it initially, some created fear, uncertainty and doubt, some called whatever they offered as cloud, and some others pumped in serious money to explore. Google can help us walk through the maze of the decade-long history with many articles titled ‘hype versus reality’ including the one in CIO magazine as early as 2008. So, the jury was on all through these years. The question now is how much of the Hype turned into Reality, after a decade?
Cloud Hype: Omnipresent & elastic
The biggest dream ever sold by Cloud evangelists is its availability anytime anywhere one needed it along with its ability to scale on how much one wanted. Subscribe don’t Spend all upfront was the added tagline. Early days were tough for providers with barely used server farms and confusing for consumers with many fears and doubts about security, last mile connectivity and control of assets.
However, the dream was attractive and packaging was just right. It was helped by the recession years (2008 through 2010) that were so cruel on businesses to cut costs and postpone capital spends. Add the dogged staying power on display from Cloud Computing service provider firms like Amazon and Microsoft. You have the right climate for the dream to take deep root.
Apart from the cult names of Amazon, Salesforce, and Microsoft, there any many other players – like Verizon, IBM, Google, VMWare, Virtustream - long list of nearly hundred plus, that are showing signs of long-term survival and growth. While most are cloud infrastructure focused, many other biggies like Oracle, Google, SAP is now driving on the Cloud SaaS & Platform lanes that Salesforce set off the traffic on.
With all this, we should agree Cloud Computing did seem to take root. It did deliver on the dream, but for a limited market. So here is my score on how much of this claim turned into reality: 4 on 5.
Cloud Hype: All worlds’ infrastructure taken
Private, public, hybrid or yours, mine, and ours. The race to call everything and rename everything as Cloud has been fascinating. There is a lot of old wine in many new bottles. Many shades of lipstick are now put on Pigs.
There were experts who said all the world’s dedicated data centers would become a cloud in 15 to 20 years. We were told that the private Data centers are dead and we should move along and over to cloud or we will be left behind with legacy steel in our compound that might not even sell as scrap. The date is fast approaching in 2020. Where are we on this hype?
What is the estimate of world’s data center infra moving onto the cloud? No one can tell for sure. Estimates could be anywhere from 5 to 15%. Long way to go and the date with 2020 is sure to be missed. So here is my score on how much of this claim turned into reality: 1 on 5.
Cloud Hype: Never fails
The Tech Clouds don’t have linings, silver or black. Cloud Computing never fails and is always running. It has backups being backed up and is built to never fail. This hype did not stand with big players like Amazon acknowledging outages (starting in 2011, ) and the server down times most of us experience once a while with many Cloud app and SaaS players. Cloud outages were reported by almost all players like Amazon, Verizon, Google, Apple and Microsoft.
The outages were played down, called partial, and recovery has been sharp in most case. Not much data lost, and that’s a positive. Add the positive of an apology and probably a discount.
The question on most CIO’s mind today is how many dependencies on Cloud is too much? What is the right ratio to own on-premise? 80: 20 or 30:70? A scenario with 100% on a cloud is probably too farfetched. So, Never Say Never for failure. Here is my score on how much of this claim turned into reality: 2 on 5.
Cloud Hype: Saves Money & Stays New
Pay as you go has been a real attractive mantra, for all those who couldn’t or wouldn’t make the down payment. Not only pay as you go, it is also about using the new. Cloud Computing has been a winner on this front playing on the same psyche the lease financing industry played but in a much better way. Renting has never been such a craze. Why should we spend big upfront and live with ageing computing infrastructure?
It opened up a whole new dimension in managerial decision making. Imagine Saving money while staying up-to-date on technology, the formulation is irresistible. Add the option to shift from one cloud vendor to another. No board would be keen to retain a CIO who has not put together a positive brief on how virtualization and cloud could be put to use. The pressure on CXO is high to deliver on this hype but seems there is quite a distance to run. Here is my score on how much of this claim turned into reality: 2 on 5.
There are many more Hype factors that need a reality check of a decade. Some of these are turning to be fascinating subjects to look into. The collateral damage being done by this Cloud Computing phenomenon to traditional habits as it grows into its teens is one such subject. The innovative startups and platforms that adopted and turned the cloud into their business model are another subject for another time.
Good analysis. I agree!
ReplyDeleteCloud evolved to address major concerns of the corporates like data privacy, regulations - resulting in other flavours private, hybrid.