Clouds Ready For Enterprise? Gartner Says Few Are

8 Linux Security Improvements In 8 Years

(Click image for larger view and slideshow.)

You may not have felt it, but there was a seismic shift in the landscape of cloud services recently. Just as companies are gearing up with plans to make use of cloud computing, a new Gartner report concluded that the number of suppliers able to meet enterprise IT's needs is shrinking, with some in headlong retreat.

HP didn't have a large enough presence among suppliers to make it into the Gartner Magic Quadrant this year. GoGrid, which retreated last year from offering general purpose infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) in favor of high performance big data management, was acquired by Datapipe in January. It also dropped out of the listing. Even among the survivors, the Gartner report accompanying the Gartner quadrant rankings made clear that enterprises face fewer choices than they might have thought would be available as recently as a year ago.

AWS Senior VP Andy Jassy has the Amazon cloud on track.

(Image: Amazon)

The report's writers, led by Gartner cloud analyst Lydia Leong, said new cloud customers must "be extremely cautious" when they're selecting a provider. "Ask specific and detailed questions about the provider's roadmap …" they warned, followed by recommended contract terms "that do not permit the provider to modify substantially or to discontinue the offering without at least 12 months' notice." It's the latter requirement that suggests the true state of the market.

With Gartner's warning ringing in their ears, many IT managers are going to realize no one will ever get fired for choosing Amazon, but that might not be true for alternative suppliers they might have wished to consider.

Cloud providers are discovering that it's hard to make any money as a cloud service supplier. Amazon with its Crazy Eddy, bargain basement pricing, now matched by Google and Microsoft, has made it extremely difficult for new suppliers to gain entry. It relentlessly lowered prices at a time when Wall Street analysts were crying out that Amazon was spending too much on infrastructure and not showing enough profit. Amazon can now show them a set of assets and marketshare that promise profits for years to come.

[Want to see how Amazon has outstripped the competition? See Gartner Doubles Estimate Of Amazon Cloud Dominance.]

So there's a divide emerging that has a handful of "safe" IaaS suppliers on one side, with deep pockets and a commitment to continue investing, and on the other is a large group with a big question mark.

Leong mapped another fault line in the market, what she calls Mode 1 and Mode 2 cloud infrastructure. Mode 1 providers could serve the needs of traditional IT, usually in the form of a coordinated, on-premises and off-premises hybrid cloud. Mode 2 type suppliers are oriented toward agile developer groups and IT operations that are pushing toward continuous software delivery and DevOps style operations. A large number of suppliers can meet typical IT needs in Mode 1; a much smaller number meet Mode 2 needs.

Given its proven ability to spin out new services rapidly, Amazon is in both of the select, small groups. Those who aren't clearly positioned will have to get into one or the other mode to survive. The report that accompanied the Magic Quadrant looked at each supplier from that perspective, citing what specific weaknesses it could spot.

What follows on the next page are the key vendor snapshots from the Gartner report, including AWS, Microsoft, Google, IBM, CenturyLink, and VMware.

(Story continues on page 2)

1 of 2