As someone focused on Hybrid or Multi-Cloud management I spend a lot time reviewing analyst research and talking with analysts from firms like Gartner and Forrester. I was on a call recently and about 2 minutes into a call the analyst says “let’s be clear upfront, the Private Cloud is dead”. That statement reminded me of one of Mark Twain’s famous quotes: “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
Private Cloud Not Going Away Anytime Soon
With the explosive growth of public cloud you hear statements like this a lot. While I spend a lot of timing talking with analyst I also spend a lot of time with enterprise customers as well. In addition I have the luxury of having access to helpful data like Forrester Business Technographics. Both of these help to give me a more rounded perspective on what is happening in the industry. So while it is clear to me that Public Cloud is growing rapidly, it is equally clear to me that the on premise data center, increasingly characterized as a Private Cloud is not going away anytime soon.
Some statistics from the Forrester Business Technograhics, Global Infrastructure 2015 Survey that support my position:
65% of Enterprises have adopted a hybrid cloud operating model. Of these same enterprises, 45% indicate that they have chosen an on premise private cloud as their primary cloud platform. This compares to 31% that indicate that they have a preference for a hosted private cloud and another 23% that indicate that their preferred cloud delivery platform is a Public Cloud.
Public Cloud is Big but by no Means Every Data Center
If you engage in a small thought exercise it will become clear to you (as it has to me) that Private Clouds are going to be with us for some time to come. In 2015 AWS reported revenues just under $8B. When you think about what this number really represents it is the hardware and people costs of one of the world’s largest and most efficient data centers with some margin tacked on. Giving AWS credit for being ultra-efficient, let’s assume that they if they were only as efficient as your average large enterprise they would be about a $10B data center.
That’s large for sure but probably only the equivalent of two or maybe three fortune 10 companies. Now don’t get me wrong, that’s a lot of data center but my point is that it is by no means the data center spending of the top 1000, the top 100 or even the top 10 enterprises in the world. The top 1000 companies are still running large data centers that represent multiple hundreds of billions of dollars of ongoing data center spending.
Plan for Multi-Cloud
Hopefully by now you see the key point I am trying to make. Private clouds are not going away anytime soon and most companies will be multi-cloud at their core. Given this reality, something that should be on the minds of IT teams everywhere is how they will manage a multi-cloud environment to ensure that they deliver to stakeholders an experience that is as good or better than anything they could experience on the Public Cloud but also with the operational control that justifies enterprises continuing to run an on premise data center.
VMware vRealize Suite, VMware’s Enterprise-Ready Cloud Management Platform (CMP), can help IT teams address the challenge of managing a multi-cloud environment that performs at a level that meets the expectations of line of business stakeholders. For an easy and quick way to get a sense of how VMware can help you address the requirements of multi-cloud management be sure to check out this video.
Learn More
The easiest and quickest way to learn more about VMware Cloud Management Platform solutions is to visit us online at VMware vRealize Suite or VMware vCloud Suite.
