Poll: Four out of ten moving to private clouds; IT consolidations intensifying

A poll of 350 IT managers conducted at the recent Interop conference in Las Vegas finds that the number one priority for most  businesses is to consolidate IT resources in an effort to reduce costs and simplify management.

Consolidate, consolidate, consolidate. Is that all there is for private clouds?

Sixty-five percent of those surveyed by Riverbed Technology, an IT systems performance vendor, said that they have already begun the process of creating a centralized IT environment. This includes 43% saying that they are moving to private clouds, where IT resources are being consolidated or virtualized to the data center. Another 33% are looking to ways to reduce the sizes of their data centers.

The three primary motivating factors for IT consolidation projects cited by respondents included: reducing costs (64%), reducing management and complexity (39%), and increasing security (32%).

This poll was conducted among a fairly technical group, so it's not surprising that motivations for private clouds lean to the cost-savings and administrative aspects.  The ultimate driver for private clouds -- as well as any other service-oriented endeavor -- will be the dexterity and agility afforded to businesses as they seek to expand and innovate in a fast-moving economy. But the poll confirms that there is a lot of activity taking place on the private cloud front.