Cloud Confusion

Pick up any technical journal, read any relevant blog, talk to any industry pundit and you can’t help but notice that there’s a lot of confusion in the cloud marketplace today.

Vendors are telling customers that everything’s moving to “the cloud.” It’s better, faster, stronger, cheaper, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. It’s the best solution for every IT problem, regardless of industry, and why would you even think of using anything else? Oh, and everybody’s using it. If hype is to be believed, customers can soon ditch all their internal data centers; after all, who needs them anymore? And of course, it’s hard to find a vendor that hasn’t added “cloud-ready” or “a cloud service” into their marketing literature and sales pitches to capitalize on the trend.

Customers, however, are leery and have a right to be. Security and privacy issues loom large, as do service delivery concerns, legal ramifications and regulatory directives. Many enterprises are testing cloud offerings in a limited capacity, but anxiety still reigns. Knowing exactly what each “cloud vendor” offers has gotten more and more difficult, making it very tough for IT managers to evaluate competitors and make informed decisions.

As in any early-stage industry or technology, confusion reigns. It’s to be expected, and it’s perfectly normal. Innovators create a shift in the market with something new, hoping to gain a first-mover advantage. Others soon join the fray, hoping to capitalize on profits to be gained during the market’s ramp-up phase and before maturation occurs, reducing margins until they reach commodity levels. These new entrants seek to establish a place for themselves in the market, and adopt new/different standards to prevent the early innovators from gaining dominance.

End users want to see common terminology and standards for obvious reasons, with interoperability being the largest motive. Vendors don’t see benefits from this, however, at least not in the early stages of market development. The prevailing fear is that standardization in the market is equivalent to commoditization, putting downward pressure on margins. So vendors typically support the idea of a standard, just as long as it’s their own.

I recently ran across an old blog posting talking about this issue as it pertains to industrial automation, entitled “The Law of Market Confusion.” In this posting, the author creates an equation to gauge the level of confusion that exists in a market. He proposes this is directly proportional to the number of vendors supporting multiple standards as well as the level of the technological instability of the market (the number of competing standards could be used as a proxy for that) and inversely proportional to the number of happy customers. Though the equation itself could use some refinement, it drives home the point; high confusion in a market is directly related to the number of unhappy customers.

In my world, unhappy customers aren’t a good thing. Neither are fearful ones. Market confusion feeds both.

It’s time for the cloud marketplace to begin adopting some basic standards. Definitions would be a good start. Many folks in the blogosphere have tried their hand at defining “cloud computing.” The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is now on revision #15 of its definition. What about best practices? Are there situations, applications, and verticals in which utilizing a cloud resource usually makes sense, and more importantly where it almost never makes sense?What process should customers follow when evaluating a potential move to the cloud? There needs to be detailed steps to make sure they’ve captured all of the costs, benefits and risks associated with a cloud migration verses the status quo.  What about interoperability and vendor lock-in? This is a major concern of IT managers, and not much progress has been made toward a solution.The cloud has enormous potential, but it won’t be realized until these issues are resolved, and customers feel it’s safer to explore this new technology delivery method. With this in mind, we can create programs and initiatives in CompTIA’s Cloud/SaaS Special Interest Group that will address these concerns.

During our past community calls, there has been a great deal of discussion on the need for education programs. In early 2010, CompTIA will deliver on this, with on-demand educational presentations that address the key foundational elements of cloud computing.  The first session is “SaaS and Cloud Computing: Why You Can’t Survive Without Them,” followed by “Where, When and How to Capitalize on the SaaS and Cloud Computing Market Opportunities” and “How SaaS and Cloud Computing Will Change Your Business.”

These topics were based on feedback from our member surveys but we would like to know other areas you would like CompTIA to cover. Your input and ideas are what will drive new educational content and initiatives in 2010 and beyond.  I look forward to hearing your feedback on this important topic and hope you’ll contribute to the ongoing discussion.

Bob Biddle is Director of Member Relations for CompTIA and the organization leader of the Cloud/SaaS Special Interest Group. Feel free to contact him at RBiddle@comptia.org.