Cloud computing has its business advantages, but the sky is grey with confusion as IT vendors use loose definitions and terms, according to analyst Gartner.
“The term cloud computing has come to mean two very different things,” complains David Mitchell Smith, vice president and Gartner fellow.
“There’s a broader use that focuses on ‘cloud,’ and a more-focused use on system infrastructure and virtualisation. Mixing the discussion of ‘cloud-enabling technologies’ with ‘cloud computing services’ creates confusion.”
Gartner defines cloud computing as a style of computing in which massively scalable IT-related capabilities are provided as a service, using Internet technologies to multiple external customers.
Mitchell Smith sees one popular problem definition, however, being the cloud simply as an idea, deriving from the Internet, web and software as a service. Here, he says, the focus is more on cloud than computing, the main thrust being about access to services from elsewhere – whether those are CRM, payroll, or any other off-premise business process provision.
His second popular interpretation is: “a use of technologies, including virtualisation and automation, that focuses more on the computing than on the cloud aspect, with emphasis placed on the technologies that enable the creation and delivery of service-based capabilities”.
His point: “Although these perspectives are different, there is a connection. Any provider of cloud computing services must have an environment that includes an infrastructure to support their delivery. Virtualisation is often used to implement this. Cloud system infrastructure services are a subset of cloud computing, but not the entire picture.”
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