The Economics of the Cloud

by Volker Weber

Computing is undergoing a seismic shift from client/server to the cloud, a shift similar in importance and impact to the transition from mainframe to client/server. Speculation abounds on how this new era will evolve in the coming years, and IT leaders have a critical need for a clear vision of where the industry is heading. We believe the best way to form this vision is to understand the underlying economics driving the long-term trend. In this paper, we will assess the economics of the cloud by using in-depth modeling. We then use this framework to better understand the long-term IT landscape.

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Comments

I see words, but I don't see any actual content...

Philip Storry, 2010-11-24

hey

very nice analogy: "horseless carriages"

Werner Motzet, 2010-11-24

Say after me, the cloud is the latest battle in the build vs buy war. So......

Cloud is just build vs buy
Cloud is just build vs buy
Cloud is just build vs buy

(PS, not my quote I stole it from someone. Sorry I don't recall where)

Darren Duke, 2010-11-24

Darren I disagree - that's why Cloud != Cloud. You could e.g. differentiate between the Public Cloud (=Amazon) and the Private Cloud (=Service within a company). Cloud is request based computing and provisioning with a layer which makes everything below fully transparent for the user.

Martin Hiegl, 2010-11-24

@Martin "Cloud is request based computing and provisioning with a layer which makes everything below fully transparent for the user." you mean like client/server or terminal/mainframe?

Carlos Rodrigues, 2010-11-25

Carlos, neither client/server nor terminal/mainframe has this additional abstraction layer. For both it was important to know the exact server/mainframe, to have everything before the request implemented and allocated.
I don't say we have a totally new thing ... it's a question of evolution ... like from terminal/mainframe to client/server. However it's not build vs buy.

Martin Hiegl, 2010-11-25

Evolution or not an on-premise cloud used to be called a server room. A private cloud used to be called a co-lo. The only difference today is you may or may not know where these elements reside.

Don't mix the tooling (provisioning, setup, etc) with the latest phrase du-jour from the vendors.

So I would agree the tooling is an evolution, but the change in nomenclature is not. That's sales and marketing.

Darren Duke, 2010-11-25

Old vowe.net archive pages

I explain difficult concepts in simple ways. For free, and for money. Clue procurement and bullshit detection.

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