Market of cloud services: 10 main events of 2012

By the beginning of 2012 it became clear that the cloud got a foothold in the market as the IT new model, entraining developers, vendors, solution providers and even distributors. Within a year new and long ago the famous players aimed to enter this market. There were different models of cloud services, certain standards affirmed and three main types of a cloud were designated: public, private and hybrid.

CRN selected the main events in the market of cloud services which happened in 2012.

10. OpenStack is selected in the separate project

In April the Rackspace company transferred control of the free project of cloud development of OpenStack to a special operating part of OpenStack Foundation which attracted participating vendors, including such heavyweights of the industry as IBM, Red Hat, Hewlett-Packard and Dell.

Having become the independent organization separate of Rackspace, OpenStack Foundation can progress further in open-cast mining, widely compatible technology which does not have a binding to any vendor and should give to developers of cloud services and their customers more choice in creation of a cloud.

Rivals of this project, Eucalyptus and Apache CloudStack (Citrix.CloudStack), also offer platform open-source for creation of infrastructure of cloud services and quickly acquire all new services.

9. Salesforce.com expanded the offer

Salesforce.com was the first company which relied on software-as-service model, having offered CRM on demand therefore no wonder that the company left in market leaders of cloud business applications. In April it submitted the cloud portal for state bodies, having promised to prepare 1000 integrators and Var'ov to implement the corresponding applications and services.

Salesforce.com added also function of social networks to the product line, without doubting that clients will hurry to seize the new opportunities.

Other vendors of business applications - SAP with One Cloud, Microsoft with Office 365 and Google with Google Apps - also stake on this market.

8. HP turns on in a cloud marathon

The world's largest IT company provided HP Converged Cloud Services in April. Though HP enters with delay on this market, its intention to become the supplier of a cloud became an important event when she integrated several directions of cloud development to provide to the organizations the choice from public, private cloud services and hybrid model. The Converged Cloud HP platform followed the example of IBM with its SmartCloud and Microsoft with Windows Azure; these two vendors decided to complement the legacy products with cloud versions.

7. Telecoms and cable operators leave in a cloud

In October AT&T combined efforts with IBM to offer services of a private cloud for the organizations and telecommunication operators.

The company of IT services Terremark (division of Verizon) got to Magic Quadrant of Gartner company for a combination of the offered cloud IT services to Verizon network.

Except these two companies, many other telecommunication and cable operators also addressed cloud services in 2012.

6. Google offered a full range of cloud services

In June Google provided Google Compute Engine (GCE), cloud infrastructure-as-service, having become the competitor of Amazon Web Services and other service providers helping the organizations to use cloud IT resources. This step was quite justified as Compute Engine uses the DPCs and infrastructure of the company located worldwide.

Google already offers a set of cloud products and services including Google App Engine (GAE), Google One (before Google Drive) and Google Docs. With Compute Engine start the company can become provider of a full range of cloud computing now.

5. SDN will help to provide flexibility of a cloud

Purchase of Nicira company (for 1.2 bln. dollars) will allow VMware to develop further network virtualization and private cloud services. Let's add that else to this transaction Nicira was a project participant of OpenStack, having developed the innovative SDN elements which will become key components in creation of flexible cloud platforms, having allowed the organizations to pass from a private cloud into public "on the fly".

4. Distributors leave in a cloud

It is quite natural that distributors want to offer cloud services to the extensive base of customers too, and such step was taken in 2012. Ingram Micro offered a portfolio of cloud products, services and options of partnership for the customers-Var'ov. Also other distributors, including D&H Distributing, Arrow and Avnet followed this example.

3. Question of reliability

On October 22 there was a failure of Amazon Web Services in northern Virginia because of what the websites of many large customers of the company, including Reddit, Pinterest and Airnb ceased to work. It was already an incident, the third for 12 months, and the last in a series of failures which happened within a year at several large suppliers of cloud services, including Microsoft to Windows Azure and Google.

Reminded Amazon to the clients that it is necessary to follow recommendations and to sign agreements of service in several different areas, but the question of reliability of a cloud remains (especially for crucial applications).

2. Three forms of a cloud

Development of cloud computing and business models allowed vendors to create cloud platforms which provide support of a private, public cloud and also combinations of that and another.

Rackspace, one of pioneers of IaaS with its OpenStack platform, early realized this trend and entered consistently public, private cloud services and a hybrid cloud.

1. "Amazon will remain the leader!"

Reminded Amazon to the world that remains the leading provider of cloud services, at the first partner conference at the end of November, 2012 in Las Vegas. Andy Dzhassi, the senior vice president of AWS, undertook counterattack on "old guard" of IT vendors - Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Oracle which offered customers of service of a private cloud and promised them all advantages of a public cloud in the DPCs. "If you go to a private cloud, then do not get these advantages", - Dzhassi warned.

The general manager Jeff Bezos emphasized that the commitment of AWS to a low margin will help vendor to win with this rivalry and in distant perspective. "The high margin covered many, - Bezos told. - We spent 18 years, working with low marches, and it deeply took roots in our culture".

Source: Jack McCarthy, CRN/USA