Immature technology slowing private cloud take up

Immature technologies and change management processes are hampering the uptake of private cloud services, says Gartner analyst Thomas Bittman.

“Technologies to deliver private cloud are relatively immature and evolving, and many enterprises find that custom work is required to meet their needs,” he said. “Cloud services require operational processes that are designed for speed and customised for the services offered.”

Bittman said many organisations are taking a technical approach to managing their private clouds, often overlooking the importance of change management.

“An ingrained IT culture focused on technical expertise doesn’t fit a fully automated, self-service model that requires a service-oriented, team approach.”

“It is much better to focus first on an approach to make transformative changes. In many cases, that means creating a separate organisation outside of traditional IT processes – at least to incubate these projects – and focusing first on a simple project that has buy-in between IT and IT’s customers.”

While many organisations have embarked or are deploying private clouds, Gartner recently released a report that shows almost half of large enterprises will have hybrid clouds by the end of 2017.

Bittman said private cloud is being boasted as ‘the next big thing’, but in reality it is not appropriate for all services. Hence, a hybrid cloud model – a combination of internal and external infrastructure – may pick up over the next few years as it can support a range of services.

“While the majority of midsize and large enterprises will build and deploy private cloud services over the next few years, private cloud will only be used for specific, appropriate services.”

When it comes to choosing cloud services for vendors, Bittman said integration throughout the cloud management platform is key to effectively expanding a cloud environment. He said most organisations start small with their cloud deployments and expand, so it’s important to consider if a vendor’s offering allows for interoperability and flexibility.