Cloud Computing Innovation Key Initiative Overview

Grazed from Gartner.  Author: David W. Cearley and Kyle Hilgendorf.

Cloud computing is a style of computing in which scalable and elastic IT-related capabilities are provided as a service to customers, using Internet technologies.    Intense hype around cloud computing makes it difficult for buyers to understand their options.

Cloud services include system infrastructure (e.g., computing, storage), application infrastructure (e.g., process server, database), full applications, information services (e.g., search) and business services (e.g., order fulfillment). There are three main delivery models:…

• Public cloud: A cloud provider runs a shared-service environment accessible to any buyer. Community cloud limits access to a set of buyers (e.g., government agencies). Public and community cloud offer economies of scale, but concerns about security, privacy, trust and control limit mission-critical uses.

• Private cloud: The enterprise has exclusive use of an isolated cloud, by implementing a cloud itself or offloading to a cloud provider’s virtual private environment. Both approaches reduce elasticity and cost savings versus public cloud, but mitigate some security concerns.

• Hybrid cloud: The enterprise coordinates across cloud service provider boundaries to assemble a solution — for example, integrating internal public cloud services and multiple external public cloud service providers. "Cloudbursting" could dynamically extend a private cloud to a public cloud for extra capacity if application architecture and performance requirements are addressed…

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