Industry Predictions for 2012

Unlike Amazon Web Services or webscale clouds in general, enterprise clouds will not scale. Simply put, AWS EC2 is not just the market maker for IaaS clouds, however also the anti-pattern to enterprise datacenters in general. In 2012, we're taking everything into account going to see widespread acceptance that the enterprise cloud architectural model is fundamentally broken. Together we'll see wider adoption and deployment of webscale clouds by "service providers" both inside and outside the enterprise who realize their enterprise clouds are failed technologies and failed business models.

We all know that AWS is successful and winning in the public space, nevertheless if their current pace is maintained they are on track for over 2M managed VMs and 2B revenue in 2012. VMware recently claimed an install base of 20M VMs. At 2M, AWS would be 10% of VMware's entire install base, a staggering number to consider. At 2B in revenue it will be hard for AMZN to continue to hide AWS inside the 'Other' revenue category. Maybe more importantly, we'll see that AWS continued focus on enterprises is coming to fruition. Large enterprises will give up the ghost and begin adopting AWS en masse.

2. Big data's growing ease of deployment and managment enables IT to in fact mine and analze the data to make real time apps and business decitions. Data integration platforms expand their capability to pull data from across environments - powering growth to companies that leverage their new data and analytics wealth.

4. Cloud Hosted Desktops - What's good for the server, may be good for the desktop. With the success of Google Docs, DropBox and other mobile productivity tools it sets the stage for greater virtual desktop adoption. Look for more virtual desktop infrastructure solutions paired with data-as-a-service allowing users to take their desktop computing everywhere without requiring a wholesale migration to thin client computing.

5. Less Cloud, More -aaS - Cloudwashing has run rampant in 2011 with research companies running to brand their products as "cloudy". Informed conversations will see more specificity in their use of cloud terminologies, like Data-as-a-Service, Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service. Consumers of the technologies will start becoming savvier as to what the differences, which will help them, sort out the types of research that best fit their needs.

3. Using Big Data in the cloud becomes as common as, so then, data. Given the rise of NoSQL databases and the ecosystem around Hadoop and related approaches, companies begin to understand that collecting and using massive amounts of data isn't so hard any more. The cloud makes processing all this information possible without having to build the infrastructure consequently in your data center. And it's pretty useful in making smart business choices.

4. The industry moves on from the "how is the infrastructure built and operated?" conversation and thinks instead about what you can do with cloud. This may sound like wishful thinking, nevertheless the nuts and bolts of how to use cloud computing are starting to coalesce sufficiently that fewer discussions need to pick apart the ways to deliver IaaS and the like. The small, smart service providers move up the stack, finding niches for themselves in delivering new service capabilities. In short, enterprises can have a more useful conversation not about how do we make this work, yet about how they our business can benefit? The question now becomes: what new business can come from the cloud model?

5. Applications become disposable. Enterprises will start to leverage the on- demand nature of cloud computing and take a page from the user experience of tablet and smartphone apps. The result: thinking about applications and their deployment less monolithically. The cloud will help enterprises make smarter decisions about how to handle their processing needs, and give them a way to do on-demand app distribution to both clients and employees. This will open up new options for access, even to older legacy applications. Enterprises will as well start to evolve applications into smaller functional chunks - like iPad or iPhone apps.

4. Cloud Computing Consulting & Professional Services Firms will grow dramatically - Clouds are becoming more prevalent and more options, configurations, and services are cluttering the marketplace. For the purpose, companies will need to understand these options and how it can benefit their organizations. Cloud companies will furthermore develop their own professional services organizations in order to assist companies navigate and craft their custom solutions. Consultancies will continue to evolve and new ones form, leveraging and implementing the best practices of multiple cloud services.

Service management, service assurance and security management to become high on the criteria for the discerning CIO. The period of 2009-2011 saw the 'race' to get a cloud product to market, nevertheless increasingly the demand-side will shift their questioning from "do you have a cloud offering" to: "how then do you run your cloud". Cloud vendors will need to invest in ITSM-as-a-service offerings to stay competitive. Because too many vendors are totally reliant on the functionality that comes through from their core innovation provider they will not be so then differentiated with their competitors. They will need to turn to service management and service assurance investments to find the differentiation that will be compelling to the CIO. The enterprise CIOs will be asking "what is your investment in ITSM", "how many dedicated ITSM staff do you have?" and "how many security professionals are employed?"

The rapid adoption of mobility

The rapid adoption of mobility and the increased deployment of the NFC chip will see the rapid start of the 'street commerce' phenomenon. The digital media industry will drive the adoption of NFC equipped interactive signage and displays allowing users to interact with displays, signs and shop fronts using smartphones. The experience will be enhanced by furthermore leveraging of Bluetooth that will allow for innovations with proximity aware interactions as then as transparent LCDs to animate shop fronts and bus shelters. The cloud-based smartphone wallet will take off and the focus will increase for 'information personalisation'.. As a result of the demand for this level of interaction Mobility-centric PaaS will be a hot market item, In Australia there is a lot of interest in providers of this specialised area.. As the APAC region is currently leading the world in adoption of smartphones and mobility there will be considerable investment in street commerce in this region.

Cloud marketing begins to differentiate its message recognising that the 'go to the cloud' messaging for enterprises is vastly different to the message for start-ups, web shops, development shops and small business. Whilst the enterprise will move individual workloads to the cloud, the more large scale cloud adoption by enterprises will continue to slow as the realization that the scale of these transformations will have deep impacts on business models, processes and people. The hype just as 'everything will be in the cloud by 2015' will be replaced with 'Cloud is here and stay and will be more about a business transformation over the at once 5+ years'. This will lead to an increased focus on professional services as the cloud adoption process for the enterprise becomes a discussion on long-term 'roadmap' and slow and safe transitions touching everything from project management, business process improvement, Enterprise Architecture and Business Analysis. In Australia the data anyway you look at it shows that enterprise adoption of cloud in the enterprise has slowed and the cloud bubble is bursting in this space.

The low hanging fruit for many CIOs will be to adopt the Desktop-as-a-service offering to deal with the very expensive and resource hungry provisioning of desktops. These multi-tenanted offerings will deliver a standard operating environment through a cloud based virtualized desktop as a service and will include network links, email, productivity suites, document management and identity management. The issue for the CIO around "Bring your own device" will be largely solved as the virtualised desktop strategies will be extended to include providing every device access to the desktop- as-a-service. As well many Australian CIOs having to grapple with the issue of delivering remote access to global offices will find that the cloud based desktops will solve a lot of their issues. The competition in this space will be around providing these services as a PER USER PER MONTH pricing model and the use of user profiles to offer different cost choices. The cost saves will be compelling for the CIO especially in the 500 to 2000 seat sized organisations.

Jeremy Geelan is President & COO of Cloud Expo, Inc. He is Conference Chair of the worldwide Cloud Expo series, of the Virtualization Conference series, and of the upcoming UlitzerLIVE! event. While his tenure with SYS-CON Media, he launched Cloud Computing Journal, Web 2.0 Journal, AJAX & RIA Journal and other leading SYS-CON titles. From 2000-6, as first editorial director and at that time group publisher of SYS-CON Media, he was responsible for the development of all new titles and i-innovation portals for the firm. From 2006 to 2010, as Sr. VP of Editorial & Events, he had complete responsibility for the content of SYS-CON's events portfolio. He regularly represents SYS-CON Media & Events at conferences and trade shows, speaking to innovation audiences both in North America and overseas. He is executive producer and presenter of "Power Panels with Jeremy Geelan" on SYS-CON.TV.