Quarter of enterprises plan private clouds

A quarter of European and US enterprises are preparing to invest in private clouds as a matter of 'high' or 'critical' priority, according to a new survey by Forrester Research.

Larger organisations with 1,000 employees or more are most likely to adopt a private cloud, the research found, and are already investing in datacentres and servers, and in particular blade servers.

However, while some of the common incentives are simple business facts, others relate to growth plans or weaknesses in current systems.

"You also likely share some blinders about what it really takes to operate a private cloud," said Forrester analyst James Staten, the report's author.

"You're under-investing in key areas such as automation, self-service, and tracking and reporting. Evening out these investments and focusing on operational shortfalls can lead to better implementations sooner, which could drive differentiating value for your company."

Not investing in these areas can lead to a technological shortfall, and Staten warned that companies not investing in cloud management, automation and support tools could find that their private cloud is seriously lacking in a number of areas.

"It's hard to operate a cloud if you aren't automated, yet 44 per cent of the respondents prioritising private clouds have no plans to invest in automation software for their virtualised environments," he said.

"That's better than the 59 per cent of those not prioritising a private cloud, but another 21 per cent of cloud builders said that automation software investments are still a year or more away."

One of the main drivers for investment is the perceived increased security of a private cloud over a third-party alternative.

Staten added that this is the number-one concern raised whenever third-party suppliers are discussed, and that 69 per cent of respondents at organisations with 1,000 employees or more cited security as their biggest concern.

Second to this are worries about the maturity of systems, cited by 36 per cent of respondents.

With these issues in mind the private cloud, where control remains within the enterprise datacentre, becomes a far more attractive proposition, explained the analyst.