The argument for private clouds

Rich Miller of Data Center Knowledge noted an excellent response by my former Cassatt colleague, Jay Fry, to Andrew Conry-Murray of InformationWeek and Eric Knorr of InfoWorld, who contend that there is no such thing as a private cloud.

Jay's response is excellent, and I absolutely concur. However, I get so frustrated with these "its gotta be off-premises" arguments that for some time now, I've been trying to figure out a quick and dirty response I can fire off whenever such "puritanism" comes into play.

On Monday, in response to Rich's tweet about his post, I came up with a tweet that sums up my position as succinctly as I think I can put it. Here's the tweet:

The argument is that straightforward. In a few more words, I argue that:

• Disruptive online technologies have almost always had an enterprise analog. The Internet itself had the intranet: the use of HTTP and TCP/IP protocols to deliver linked content to an audience through a browser. The result was a disruptive technology similar to its public counterpart but limited in scope to each individual enterprise.
• Cloud computing itself may primarily represent the value derived from purchasing shared resources over the Internet, but again, there is an enterprise analog: the acquisition of shared resources within the confines of an enterprise network. This is a vast improvement over the highly siloed approach IT has taken with commodity server architectures to date.
• The result is that much of the same disruptive economics and opportunity that exists in the "public cloud" can be derived at a much smaller scale from within an enterprise's firewall. It is the same technology, the same economic model, and the same targeted benefits, but focused only on what can be squeezed out of on-premises equipment.

Update: See my comment below for a clarification of how I use the word "scale" here.

Now, whether it is in fact better to override the desire to build a private cloud, and to go right to a "public cloud" model is debatable and almost certainly dependent on situation.

I showed recently that there is a case to be made for a "barrier of exit" for medium to large enterprises from their own infrastructure to the public cloud. If I am right, then a "private cloud" architecture is a great way to get moving in the right direction.

So there you have it: my argument for why private clouds not only exist, but why they may make sense in many cases. While Eric Knorr may roll his eyes at this, he should do so knowing that I'm rolling my eyes right back at him.

[iam-rodos]

Can't say I agree with this. For a rebuttal see http://rodos.haywood.org/2009/01/when-is-cloud-private.html

Great conversation thought and I think we need to get these distinctions clear.

[jamesurquhart]

I also commented on your thoughtful post.

I think you missed the meaning of the word "scale" in this context. I meant that the impact of the disruption caused by a private cloud is limited to that enterprise (and perhaps its immediate supplier/customer integrations). I did not mean to imply that the enterprise couldn't scale as much as their physical infrastructure would let them.

That being said, it occurs to me that I should probably have used the work "scope" instead of "scale". Thus, the short form reads "Internet has Intranet. Cloud Computing has Private Clouds. Same disruption, limited scope."

[ryan-appirio]

Of course there's such a thing as a private cloud... the question is whether it matters.

Appirio argues that private clouds are just an expensive data center with a fancy name. We predict that 2009 will represent the rise and fall of this over-hyped concept promoted mostly by companies trying to sell you a new data center.

Of course, virtualization, service-oriented architectures, and open standards are all great things for every company operating a data center to consider. But all this talk about ?private clouds? is a distraction from the real news: the vast majority of companies shouldn?t need to worry about operating any sort of data center anymore, cloud-like or not.

<a href="http://www.appirio.com/blog/2009/01/2009-prediction-rise-and-fall-of.php">More at our blog...</a>

[JayFry3]

Actually, private/internal clouds could actually mean using your existing infrastructure more efficiently. You don't have to buy an expensive new data center to begin doing this (I can absolutely see why THAT would be a non-starter in most cases!).

[enomaly]

Depends if you classify cloud computing as internet based computing or the internet as an infrastructure model.

[jacksonp2008]

My thought, how about if we all agree on a standard definition and stop clouding (npi) the issue with marketing.

?Cloud computing encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use service that, in real time over the Internet, extends IT?s existing capabilities.?

The notion of a ?private cloud? sounds way too much like traditional networking to me. I can remember back in the good old days, ( just a couple of years ago - wink wink) when we called that Data Center Consolidation.

http://pollockon.com/?p=167