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Cloud Predictions for 2012
Contributed
Article by Floyd Strimling, cloud technology evangelist, Zenoss
As we say goodbye to 2011, it's been an incredible year of
technology as the cloud continues to mature. Here are my predictions for
2012:
1.
PAAS Heats Up: Azure vs. Cloud Foundry vs. CloudShift
In
2012, platform-as-a-service will garner much attention as new and innovative
"cloud" applications are introduced into the market. While Microsoft will
dominate the Windows/.NET development community, both Cloud Foundry and
CloudShift will emerge from betas and battle it out for PAAS supremacy.
2. Private Cloud
Comeback: OpenStack, CloudForms, vCloud
In
2011, we have seen a raging debate regarding the value of a private
cloud. In 2012, the value will be clearly articulated as Enterprises
begin to build-out private cloud environments. These new private clouds
will start small but they will quickly grow while paving the way hybrid cloud
deployments.
3.
Commercialization of IT leads to major security breach
You've
been hearing a lot about BYOD (bring your own device) and employees using free
cloud providers for services in the name of productivity outside of the purview
of internal IT. In 2012, we will see a large Enterprise experience a
breach because of these so-called productivity enhancing cloud
applications. An innocent act by a group of users will set this movement
back.
4.
Cloud Consolidation
In
2012 we will see the rapid consolidation of cloud technologies across the
industry. Proprietary software vendors will seek smaller open source
vendors in hopes of shedding their legacy images while closing product
gaps. Unprotected Open Source projects ala MySQL will be especially
tempting to acquire as they can be brought under the control of a single
company and monetized accordingly.
5. Rise of the Network Hypervisor
In
2012 we will continue to see dramatic changes within the network layer of the
cloud. OpenFlow, Nicira, BigSwitch, Cisco (LineSider) and others will see
an uptick in inquiries and deployment of the technology. Finally, at
least one of the major hypervisor vendors (Citirx, VMware, Microsoft, or Red
Hat) will jump into this arena either organically or via an acquisition.
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About the Author
Floyd Strimling
is a cloud technology evangelist at Zenoss, who enjoys creating, debating, and
following technology trends with the goal of making them a reality. Floyd's
unique background spans both hardware and software environments with experience
in Cloud Computing/Autonomic Computing, Datacenter Automation, Virtualization,
Networking and Security.