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As companies become able to automate, manage and secure virtualised environments, they will increasingly operate internal clouds and begin to federate to the external cloud when they need to. Over the coming years, as confidence builds more and more companies will resource capacity and applications from the external cloud.
Forward thinking companies are today beginning to understand how to dynamically manage virtualised environments in order to use infrastructure as a service, giving greater flexibility and the ability to provision computing power on demand, as and when needed - this creates the internal cloud - ‘unleashing the power of virtualisation'.
Unleashing the Power of Virtualization 2010 Cloud Computing and the Perceptions of European Business FEBRUARY 2010 Untitled Document Copyright 2010 CA. All Rights Reserved. One CA Plaza, Islandia, N.Y. 11749. All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. - 2 - Contents Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................... 3 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 3 Further Information ............................................................................................................................. 3 The Survey ......................................................................................................................................... 3 Methodology ....................................................................................................................................... 4 Cloud Computing ................................................................................................................................ 4 Survey Results ....................................................................................................................................... 8 Summary .......................................................................................................................................... 22 Glossary ........................................................................................................................................... 23 Untitled Document Copyright 2010 CA. All Rights Reserved. One CA Plaza, Islandia, N.Y. 11749. All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. - 3 - Executive Summary Introduction Over the last eighteen months, cloud computing has become the most discussed topic in the IT industry. Vendors, the media and analysts have all been debating the topic from a variety of perspectives. There is now an emerging consensus that cloud computing, especially Infrastructure as a Service, will play an increasing role in the IT operations of most companies over the coming years. This will fundamentally change the delivery model for services. It will not be a sudden transition, but rather a series of gradual steps along the way. Right now, many companies are using virtualization in their data centres to reduce costs (server consolidation). However many are only deploying dynamic allocation and provisioning in Test & Development environments as they do not understand ROI and cannot manage and secure it they struggle to reap the full benefits of virtualisation in other areas. As companies become able to automate, manage and secure virtualised environments, they will increasingly operate internal clouds and begin to federate to the external cloud when they need to. Over the coming years, as confidence builds more and more companies will resource capacity and applications from the external cloud. Forward thinking companies are today beginning to understand how to dynamically manage virtualised environments in order to use infrastructure as a service, giving greater flexibility and the ability to provision computing power on demand, as and when needed this creates the internal cloud unleashing the power of virtualisation . Further Information For further information about the Unleashing the Power of Virtualization 2010 report, please go to: www.ca.com/gb/mediaresourcecentre For further information on CA solutions, please go to www.ca.com The Survey Bearing this in mind, CA wanted to better understand the perspective of European enterprises on cloud computing, on the issues that surround it, and on the technologies which, together, constitute infrastructure as a service, sourced from an - internal or external - cloud. To understand this better, CA commissioned Vanson Bourne a respected international research organisation to survey IT directors and senior IT managers in 550 companies across 14 countries to discover: " The level of adoption of the core technologies which constitute cloud " Companies future intentions with regard to cloud " Perceived benefits, as well as risks and barriers " Where companies are in terms of cloud maturity today the journey to the cloud - and whether there are any significant variations by sector or region " The extent to which companies see cloud as a kind of outsourcing (the external cloud) , or as a logical development of internal IT infrastructure (the internal cloud) Untitled Document Copyright 2010 CA. All Rights Reserved. One CA Plaza, Islandia, N.Y. 11749. All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. - 4 - " How much companies will be using external vendors to help them implement cloud solutions Methodology The Virtualisation and Cloud Computing Index was conducted between September and December 2009 by Vanson Bourne. 550 respondents were surveyed: 50 each from the UK, France, Germany and Italy and 35 each from Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Spain and Portugal. Some 65% of organisations surveyed had over 3000 employees; the remaining 35% had 1000 to 3000 employees. 10 key takeouts from the research There is still a long way to go before cloud computing is seen by the enterprise as a long-term shift in methodology. While only 11% of respondents are directly sceptical, 72% remain to be convinced. Companies are not clear on the benefits of cloud computing internal or external. Companies do not seem to link the technical advantages of cloud computing with the business benefits they support. Companies are evenly split between seeing cloud as another form of outsourcing (the external cloud) or as an evolution of their own IT infrastructure (internal cloud). Security, management and compliance are seen as the biggest drawbacks for cloud computing 54% of the perceived drawbacks of cloud are related to aspects of its management. 65% of companies do not believe they have the in-house expertise to deliver cloud computing. Server virtualization is gaining real traction with 70% of respondents either implementing or planning to implement it. The economic downturn has driven the uptake of cloud enabling technologies especially virtualization and automation There is a disconnect between IT and wider corporate strategy on how/whether to prepare for the economic upturn. Cloud Computing Interest in Cloud Computing First of all, do customers accept the drift of analyst and media commentary that cloud is the future? The jury is out on this. On the one hand, only 11% see cloud as a fad. On the other hand, only 17% see it as a long-term shift in methodology. This means that 72% are still, to varying degrees, to be convinced. Although the majority of respondents in the IT area are yet to be persuaded, their companies are not standing still. 47% are either implementing or planning to implement cloud. Untitled Document Copyright 2010 CA. All Rights Reserved. One CA Plaza, Islandia, N.Y. 11749. All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. - 5 - Interestingly given that the majority of currently-available cloud services are aimed at the smaller business - interest in cloud grows dramatically as the company size grows. 63% of companies with between 1000 and 3000 employees have no interest in cloud, with that number reducing to 43% of businesses with over 3000 employees. This is highly significant, and points to the probability that the use of infrastructure a s a service within the larger enterprise (the internal cloud ) will be the first iteration of cloud computing. Looking more at the internal cloud, companies seem to be progressively adopting the steps which lead towards cloud computing. Take-up of virtualization is relatively high with 43% either fully or nearly fully implemented and this decreases as we walk through the steps towards the internal cloud (21% automated provisioning, 17% automated deprovisioning, 16% dynamic resource handling). Benefits of Cloud There is relatively little clarity among respondents as to the benefits of cloud computing, and no compelling reason given. CA asked about the specific technical benefits of cloud resource pooling, broad network access, on-demand self service, rapid elasticity and measured (metered) service. None of them got above 27%. Had questions been asked about the business benefits these technologies allow (cost savings, better ROI, increased availability, ability to deploy new services much more quickly etc.) it is very difficult to imagine that the numbers would have been so low It is clear that companies are not yet able to translate the technical characteristics of cloud into clear and tangible business benefits. This reinforces the point above that 72% of respondents are, to some degree, to be convinced As vendors and the wider industry draw clearer and more tangible connections between the technological advantages of cloud computing and real business benefit this number should reduce. It is also notable that measured service the key selling point of the external cloud model is only seen as an advantage by 14% of respondents. Drawbacks of Cloud There is also relatively little clarity about the drawbacks of cloud. Nearly a quarter of respondents feel that its unproven nature is a significant drawback (22%). The biggest concern, however, is security of sensitive data with 27% of respondents citing it. This rises to 47% in the financial services sector. This would seem to refer primarily to the external cloud model where Steps towards Infrastructure as a Service from a private cloud 1. Server virtualization 2. Automatic provisioning 3. Automatic deprovisioning 4. Dynamic resource allocation 5. Metered use-base charging Untitled Document Copyright 2010 CA. All Rights Reserved. One CA Plaza, Islandia, N.Y. 11749. All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. - 6 - the regulatory complexities of holding sensitive data with a third party potentially located in a different jurisdiction have yet to be solved by European companies. Looked at in groups, it is clear that the biggest concern is around the management of cloud computing with 54% of the listed concerns concerning management & control, data management, workload management, SLA management and managing proof of concept. Internal or external Cloud? There is still some confusion as to whether cloud computing in the form of infrastructure a s a service means simply a new form of outsourcing or the application of cloud-enabling technologies within a company s infrastructure (the internal cloud ). Illustrating this, the respondents were exactly evenly split as to whether they feel that cloud is synonymous with outsourcing. Internal or external resource? The majority of companies surveyed (65%) feel that cloud computing is not something which they are able to deliver in-house without the help of outside vendors. Of those companies who are already undertaking cloud-related projects 21% are carting them out entirely with their own internal resources. The rest, to some degree or other, are engaging the help of an external vendor. There is little variation in this except for public sector where 42% plan to use their own resources. Virtualization and the other technologies which make up Cloud Whether external or internal, cloud computing builds upon the advantages of virtualization. Virtualization has the potential to deliver real benefits of increased reliability, increased utilization and decreased cost. But that ability is really unleashed when it is allied to automation (so that virtual machines and resources are allocated automatically when needed) and to dynamic provisioning and de-provisioning (so that the virtualized resourced are automatically configured when needed, and the resource they consume released back to the pool when no longer needed). The survey asked respondents about their take-up of each of these technologies. By far the most broadly embraced is virtualization. 70% of companies across the survey either are already using server virtualization or planning to. Although the intention to embrace server virtualization is fairly strong across all regions there is significant regional variation in how much companies are already deploying the technology. In Austria for instance, 83% of the sample are already using server virtualization (followed closely by 74% in the Netherlands and 68% in the UK). Only 11% of companies interviewed in Spain are currently using server virtualization (closely followed by 14% in Belgium). Of those companies embracing server virtualization, 65% are doing it to improve the reliability of service levels and 56% to achieve cost savings. This is fairly uniform across the sizes and sectors of companies, although the public sector stands out with 68% of organisations are looking for cost savings. The other technologies which make up cloud computing are far less widely taken up with 35% of respondents using automated workloads, 19% dynamic provisioning and 11% dynamic deprovisioning. Untitled Document Copyright 2010 CA. All Rights Reserved. One CA Plaza, Islandia, N.Y. 11749. All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. - 7 - It is especially interesting to note the disparity between the number of companies using dynamic provisioning (the automatic allocation of resources) and those using dynamic deprovisioning (releasing those resources again). The success of the internal cloud as a model will depend on the increasing maturity and uptake of those technologies which unleash the power of virtualization. The economic environment and Cloud With the exception of the public sector which seems relatively untroubled respondents reported that their day-to-day and strategic outlooks were heavily influenced by the prevailing economic environment. This directly affects the uptake of cloud-enabling technologies with 29% stating that they had invested in virtualization and 24% in automation specifically because of the economic downturn. This can be directly traced to their role in cost reduction and increasing utilization. The benefits of the other technological enablers of cloud are more to do with the ability to develop and deploy services quickly, the ability to allow on-demand computing within the enterprise and the ability to respond quickly to customer needs. These are harder to quantify financially, and they are also nice-to-haves in a period of retrenchment, but essential in a period of growth. What is interesting is that 57% of respondents say that their companies are actively preparing for the upturn, but only 35% of them say that the IT department is making plans for the upturn. This yawning gap between corporate planning and IT planning is old news it has been the subject of debate for decades. But it is also especially relevant to the discussion of cloud. Beyond the cost reduction which virtualization delivers, the advantages of the cloud internal and external are essentially about IT delivering a more streamlined, agile, innovative and responsive service to the business. This requires increased communication between the business and IT. For vendors and the IT industry more broadly (commentators, analysts , early adopters etc.) there is a big job to do in clarifying and explaining the benefits not just of cloud computing, but of each of the incremental steps which lead from today s static or (at best) mixed models to the dynamic virtualized internal cloud and eventually the seamless external cloud. Untitled Document Copyrigmarks, Surv1. - - - 2. - - t 2010 CA. 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