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For something that started in the 1950s, cloud computing might seem to be late to the buzzword party. In fact, that pervasive, omnipresent trend of today is technically more than 60 years old. In those days, time sharing allowed multiple terminals to share the physical access and CPU time on mainframes. But the vision for cloud was already there: in the 1950s, scientist Herb Grosch predicted that the world would operate on dumb terminals powered by about 15 large data centres.

Commercialised in the 1960s, cloud computing evolved through the early VPNs of the 1990s, virtualisation and the dotcom bubble that fuelled Amazon's rise to success, until the point in 2008 when Gartner remarked that cloud computing could "shape the relationship among consumers of IT services, those who use IT services and those who sell them." It later observed that businesses were "switching from company-owned hardware and software assets to per-use service-based models" so that the "projected shift to computing … will result in dramatic growth in IT products in some areas and significant reductions in other areas."

More recently, in October 2013, Gartner predicted that Cloud Computing would account for the bulk of new IT spend by 2016. Cloud is reaching its apex.

SPOILT FOR CHOICE
The length of time that cloud has taken to reach this point perhaps accounts for the confusion that continues to surround it. There's confusion about cloud technology, confusion over IT infrastructure development and now, with the illusion of unbounded capacity in the cloud, confusion about data centre options and their place in the IT strategy.

Public, private, hybrid, on premise, co-located - with so many options and approaches, many mid-sized enterprises are finding it difficult to understand the myriad data centre solutions on the market. Many companies have commenced their IT transformation journey, but the data centre typically continues to be viewed simply as real estate. No longer can there be a single procurement approach. Multi-sourcing is here to stay.

The data centre must become more than that. At the heart of the transformation to the cloud, it needs to become more relevant to the enterprise in supporting the transition from basic virtualisation to its latest stage of evolution: software-defined data centres (SDDC). This means understanding both the enterprise IT revolution and the individual needs of each business.

The goals for businesses moving to the cloud tend to be similar: whether private, public, or hybrid cloud, users seek to increase agility, boost flexibility, reduce time to implement, enable efficient international operations and reduce costs. This does not mean that all companies can be herded in the same direction; they won't take the same journey in the IT transformation and will have different needs.

A CLOUD BY ANY OTHER NAME
Some industries are more accepting of cloud than others. At one end of the scale, the retail industry tends to be very comfortable with the concept and adoption of cloud and can articulate how it works and its benefits.

At the other, those driven by strict regulatory standards - charity-funded research organisations and legal in particular - are extremely cautious about cloud. A huge disconnect between the business and IT sides of these industries means that to them, cloud is public, out of their control and a security risk. That being the case, the mere use of the cloud word causes ripples even when looking to deploy private clouds. More palatable to the lawyers, partners and research leaders is terminology such as "utilising the benefits of automation and orchestration in an on-premises environment".

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