Cloud computing can be integrated with existing management processes

While cloud computing appeals to startups and small businesses due to its responsiveness and the way it avoids capital expenditure, larger organisations need to blend it with their existing IT practices, Herb VanHook, vice president of strategy at BMC, told iTWire.

Such organisations want to adopt the dynamic, self-service, agile model that cloud offers, while retaining their existing request management, change management and software release management systems. For example, a self-service request for a particular function should generate a change ticket which is automatically closed when the function is delivered.

BMC is "very, very close" to delivering this, VanHook said.

However, there are some complexities caused by the use of different models for different workloads within the same organisation. For example, some functions may most effectively be delivered to users via a SaaS provider, while IaaS may be more appropriate for others.

The growing complexity can be seen in the size of RFIs received by BMC, VanHook said. 18 months ago, RFIs were thin documents, and the first the company received was just eight pages. But BMC recently received an RFI that ran to nearly 300 pages, and they have become more complex and reflect greater maturity among potential customers.

"That ramp has gone up very, very quickly," said VanHook.