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14 Aug 2009
Enterprise IT departments are being transformed by cloud computing, according to one Sun executive.
Lew Tucker, chief technical officer of Sun's cloud computing branch, said that the firm has seen an increased interest from IT departments in how cloud services can be used both to supplement and to replace existing hardware infrastructure.
Tucker said that the interest has covered both external cloud systems and locally run "private cloud" platforms.
"With traditional IT, where they already have a lot of investment in servers, we're also seeing IT managers looking at cloud computing and saying 'Is there something I can use here internally?'," said Tucker.
He said that additionally, IT staff were seeing their roles change. As cloud computing services either eliminate hardware or minimise maintenance, Tucker said that IT departments are being freed up to perform other duties, such as engineer new code or add additional features to tools.
"Internal IT is looking much more like a service provider," he explained.
"They are starting to be able to take advantage of higher degrees of automation in systems administration to drive down their costs and they can give their business units better agility."
Tucker's comments highlight what has been an ongoing theme at the 2009 CloudWorld conference. Several speakers have noted the emergence of cloud systems within IT and the ways in which both locally hosted and web-based cloud computing systems were changing enterprise computing.
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Cloud computing needs business-driven standards
COLT adds its voice to calls for greater progress to be made in the creation and adoption of industry standards in cloud computing. COLT, now a member of the Open Cloud Manifesto, has made the call hot-on-the-heels of its recent announcement that it is ramping-up its managed services business in order to better serve its customers with COLT's network, utility computing applications and data centres. There is a lack of regulatory and technical cohesion in cloud computing standards. There needs to be greater effort and more activity in driving consensus around what represents good practices, particularly relating to which aspects need to be standardised and when. COLT is fully behind the development of open cloud standards including a framework for certification and regulation of cloud computing services. In addition to lending weight to the argument for the adoption of commonly agreed, pragmatic standards in the industry, COLT is also urging for any such standards to address issues that are of real concern to businesses such as risk management, compliance, data retention, security and business continuity. When it comes to cloud services, the industry is too focussed on technological and technical debates. It is our customers' business issues that motivates or restrict them from adopting cloud services and it is, therefore, imperative that any regulation or standardisation addresses these requirements.
Posted by: Maggy McClelland, managing director of COLT Managed Services 26 Aug 2009