Four ways enterprises can enter the Cloud

SINGAPORE: Private Cloud is the most popular of the IaaS deployment models in the US and Europe today -- according to Forrester's Hardware Survey, 55 per cent of North American and European enterprises plan to prioritize building an internal private cloud in 2014, with 33 per cent already having adopted private cloud.

In a new report, Forrester analyst Lauren Nelson classifies private cloud implementations into four general solutions based on motivation, leadership, tools, budget, timeframe, and process:

1. Enhanced virtualization: Layering a software solution (no required infrastructure) atop an existing virtualized environment with the goal of enhancing current state of infrastructure operations, agility, and resource consumption.

2. Test/dev cloud: Using a lightweight software-only solution atop a small set of existing resources for the sole purpose of delivering fast access to resources for developers. This is either to provide an alternative to public cloud or complement to public cloud usage.

3. Public-cloud-lite: Creating an alternative to public cloud that can serve more workloads, accommodate greater customization, and use existing internal resources while still prioritizing the speed of delivery associated with a public cloud. This is driven from within line-of-business (LOB)-aligned IT.

4. Transformational cloud: Embracing cloud as a transformational technology and implementing it more pervasively using a variety of methods.

In addition, Nelson outlined benefits, challenges, cost, size, and keys to success for each solution, as well as the "do's and don'ts" of private cloud.