Lydia LeongI’ve recently contributed to a couple of our hype cycles.
Gartner’s very first Hype Cycle for Cloud Computing features a whole array of cloud-related technologies and services. One of the most interesting things about this hype cycle, I think, is the sheer number of concepts that we believe will hit the plateau of productivity in just two to five years. For a nascent technology, that’s pretty significant — we’re talking about a significant fundamental shift in the way that IT is delivered, in a very short time frame. However, a lot of the concepts in this hype cycle haven’t yet hit the peak of inflated expectations — you can expect plenty more hype to be coming your way. There’s a good chance that for the IaaS elements that I focus on, the crash down into the trough of disillusionment will be fairly brief and shallow, but I don’t think it can be avoided. Indeed, I can already tell you tales of clients who got caught up in the overhype and got themselves into trouble. But the “try it and see” aspect of cloud IaaS means that expectations and reality can get a much faster re-alignment than it can if you’re, say, spending a year deploying a new technology in your data center. With the cloud, you’re never far from actually being able to try something and see if it fits your needs.
My hype cycle profile for CDNs appears on our Media Industry Content hype cycle, as well as our brand-new TV-focused (digital distribution and monetization of video) Media Broadcasting hype cycle. Due to the deep volume discounts media companies receive from CDNs, the value proposition is and will remain highly compelling, although I do hear plenty of rumblings about both the desire to use excess origin capacity as well as the possibilities that the cloud offers for both delivery and media archival.
I was involved in, but am not a profile author on, the Hype Cycle for Data Center Power and Cooling Technologies. If you are a data center engineering geek, you’ll probably find it to be quite interesting. Ironically, in the midst of all this new technology, a lot of data center architecture and engineering companies still want to build data centers the way they always have — known designs, known costs, little risk to them… only you lose when that happens. (Colocation companies, who have to own and operate these data centers for the long haul, may be more innovative, but not always, especially since many of them don’t design and build themselves, relying on outside expertise for that.)
Category: Infrastructure Tags: CDN, Cloud, Gartner, research
5 responses so far ↓
1 jeff shuey August 24, 2009 at 1:25 pm
What’s a CDN?
2 Lydia Leong August 24, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Content delivery network (Akamai, Limelight, etc.)
3 David Deans August 24, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Lydia,
Perhaps the selective out-tasking of enterprise applications to managed cloud service providers will mainstream sooner, rather than later.
Why? Because there’s less hype, and more substance, when cloud services are offered as a natural extension of managed network service offerings that are already widely adopted in the enterprise.
Frankly, I’m puzzled why we see editorial commentary that seems to assume that CIOs have an all-or-nothing decision to make — regarding the application of cloud services within their business environment.
It would appear that most early-adopters are taking a more sensible appoach — relatively small measured experiments — and therby quickly reaping the benefits that result from their trial best-practices.
Granted, the Reality Cycle may be of little interest to the IT pundits, but apparently business decision makers are more inclined to look for the potential upside from these new developments.
4 Lydia Leong August 24, 2009 at 6:53 pm
I would phrase your prediction somewhat differently: Virtualized servers will become the mainstream norm for managed hosting. This is already the case; a significant percentage of new managed hosting customers will buy at least a portion of their service on their hoster’s cloud, when that’s an option.
Adoption is indeed gradual, and it is project-by-project, rather than whole-hog, which I think makes plenty of sense. Interestingly, I still get a lot of inquiry about what it will take to move whole-hog into the cloud, so there are certainly a lot of people who would be willing to charge right in IF the cloud could actually meet all their requirements, which it currently cannot.
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