Many in the industry don’t recognize the concept of “private cloud,” saying that it fails to meet the true definition of cloud, being a collection of resources across the Web. However, it looks like many companies are forging ahead with their own implementations of cloud for the benefit of employees and business partners.
In my work with Unisphere Research/Information Today Inc., I had the opportunity to survey 267 members of the the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG), on their adoption of cloud computing, and found a groundswell of interest in the private cloud concept.
For purposes of this survey, underwritten by Oracle, we defined “private clouds” as virtualized IT resources, controlled and owned by the organization, providing on-demand shared services to end users within or affiliated with the organization. By contrast, for purposes of this study, public clouds are services offered to any and all users on a commercial, pay-per-use basis by a third party.
The survey find that 29% of organizations report they already have deployed an internal cloud, with another 15% piloting, planning or considering private clouds. Even the private cloud pilots must have serious traction, as a total of 37% of respondents indicate that some piece of their organization’s workload processing or infrastructure is now available through private cloud services.
In the process, many companies also are becoming cloud suppliers in their own right. Along with IT-enabled services made available to parts of the organization, more than a third also extend these services to their external networks of customers and partners. Nine percent, in fact, say that a sizeable segment of their IT services are now also available to users outside their firewalls.
My conclusion is that we expect the trend to private cloud to continue intensifying. Users who are relatively mature in their use of private cloud and who have invested more significantly are reaping cost savings by eliminating duplication, standardizing for operational efficiency and through higher asset utilization.
I will provide additional background to the survey findings in detail via a Webcast in conjunction with Rex Wang, vice president, Oracle Product Marketing, on December 2, 2010 at 12:00 noon EST. Check out the Webcast at http://www.oracle.com/goto/iougcloudsurvey
