First of all, I’d like to point out a major difference between the Gartner conference and the big Cisco Live user conference going on down here at the same time. Keynotes start at 8am at the Gartner show – and before that is breakfast, networking, etc. etc. John Chambers’ keynote over at Cisco Live starts at 10am. 8am versus 10am. I knew there was a reason I should have been a network engineer…

But here’s something they don’t have at Cisco Live – VP & Distinguished Analyst Thomas Bittman talking about Cloud Computing and the Future of Infrastructure.

(Picture credit: WATBlog)

Point: The idea is that it’s complex to create computing power so we should centralize it among a few providers (Google, Amazon, ebay) to gain economies of scale. Ability to drive down price by centralizing and getting to scale is just too compelling. In this scenario, computing is a commodity; IT is a commodity. Remember Nick Carr’s controversial book, “Does IT Matter”?

Gartner Counterpoint: IT is not a commodity because of constant innovation. So it’s not about a big investment in old/stagnating technology but more about developing and investing in agility. There will be not a few cloud computing providers but thousands.

A quick definition of Cloud Computing by Gartner: a style of computing where massively scalable IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service to external customers using Internet technologies.

Cloud Computing Drivers:

• connections are becoming pervasive (anywhere, anytime)
• response time expectations are shrinking
• relationships are online and short-lived

Tom Bittman shared a view of the evolution of the data center – from “Silos to Clouds”. Prior to about 2002, data centers were sprawled siloed organizations focused on component management. Over time, hardware cost went down, flexibility is up spurred by technologies like virtualization and creating fluid pools of capacity that can be moved around intelligently. What we are moving towards is automated, services-oriented environment in data centers that are focused on enabling agility. Ecco Cloud Computing!

Gartner predictions:

• By 2012, 80% of the Fortune 100 will be paying for some cloud computing services, and
• 30% will be paying for cloud computing infrastructure services.

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