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In the UK, cloud computing has grown rapidly over the past few years. By 2016, it’s expected to account for £43 billion, or roughly 20 per cent of the UK’s total IT market. At the same time the technologies behind data centres, cloud storage and delivery are developing at breakneck speed. Peter Elgar, CWCS Managed Hosting, asks could cloud computing in the UK ever become a commodity?

The advantages of cloud computing across organisations large and small are tangible and realisable. Computing resources, such as servers, storage and infrastructure, are delivered on-demand over the internet. It’s quick to provision and flexible. It’s also instantly scalable and inherently elastic. Theoretically at least, users take the resources they need when they need it, from wherever they are.

Because businesses rent rather than buy computing resources, the cloud effectively transforms computing into an operating cost rather than capital expenditure. It can be paid for annually, monthly, hourly or even by the minute. It significantly reduces upfront costs (there’s no major initial investment in servers or software) as well as outlay on maintenance, office space and in-house

technical expertise. It also needs a lot less management and internal resources than traditional on-premise implementations and electricity bills come down.

Adoption Although by no means a slow adopter, there has been some reluctance within UK businesses to take up cloud computing. While cost savings and productivity gains are the main drivers of cloud adoption, it’s been held back by concerns about reliability, trust and security.

There’s still a degree of suspicion of cloud technology, but it’s decreasing. Small businesses, which arguably have the most to gain, are catching on to the cloud in a big way. The UK public sector has been slower to adopt the cloud, with

some estimates that it’s two years behind the private sector. It has begun to catch up as the benefits of the cloud to public sector organisations become apparent and procurement practices adapt accordingly.

Commoditisation of cloud computingAs cloud technology becomes accepted and the market matures, could cloud computing providers become like utility companies? Could we buy metered units of computing, just like we buy domestic water, gas or electricity?

While technology continues to develop quickly, computing power increases, adoption rises, migration becomes easier and economies of scale come into play, prices are likely to come down. At the same time organisations that deliver cloud

ClOUd COmpUTING – A COmmOdITY?

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computing will inevitably grow, merge and streamline delivery to meet increased demand. On the face of it commoditisation could be happening. However, it is still early days yet.

Commodities such as electricity, gas or water have defined, agreed and regulated standards. Conversely a lack of standardisation is a key factor holding back the commoditisation of the cloud. Unlike utilities, there’s a lot of variation in what cloud computing providers deliver. One of the largest obstacles that’s preventing commoditisation of the cloud is that there is limited agreement on ‘units of cloud computing’.

Cloud providers, both established and emerging, use different set-ups, with different specifications of hardware and data centre infrastructure. They have their own methods of pricing, usually based on cloud equivalents of varying combinations of specifications of CPUs, cores, amount of RAM, storage, bandwidth and so on. As technology develops, the emphasis on each of these could vary. Although there are defined measurements of each of these individual components, there’s generally no unit of cloud computing commonly used between providers. In addition to this, there is also massive variance between providers in terms of support provision, add-ons and customer service, which also play a major role.

This lack of standardisation is currently making comparisons between providers difficult and slowing commoditisation. However, the European Union is formally starting to look at standardising the cloud. As part of a European Cloud Computing Strategy, a body within the EU has started to get public authorities and industry to work together to build an EU Digital Single Market for cloud computing.

With many different cloud providers, how do you choose the right one?Partly due to the lack of standardisation, trust is one of the most important aspects when choosing a provider. You need to believe they are providing the best solution for your business, that they are reliable and, because they are holding your business-critical information, you need to have confidence that they will secure it appropriately.

Established UK cloud hosting providers provide high quality, comprehensive, premium cloud services. They are based

around high-specification infrastructure from multiple UK data centres and high levels of technical expertise and customer service. Others providers target the budget end, and there are of course many others in between.

SecurityJust because you store data in the cloud doesn’t mean you can neglect responsibility for security, but you also need to know your cloud provider provides the highest security levels.

Effective cloud security is a complex topic and a continuously moving target. It’s by no means just a matter of applying upgrades and patches, and applies to physical as well as cyber security. But, done properly, a cloud environment, particularly for small businesses, will be more secure than alternatives such as having a server on site. Modern data centres are built from the ground up with security in mind. Your cloud provider should employ full-time system administrators and security experts that look after your data, others’ data and their own infrastructure properly. They should also have extremely robust, regularly audited procedures in place.

With public clouds, it’s important that the providers tell you the locations of their servers. The EU’s Data Protection Directive rules state that data must either be stored in the European Economic Area (EEA) or in a territory that has equivalent privacy laws. So if you’re storing any sort of personal data, make sure you know where the cloud servers you’re using are located.

Performance and availabilityCloud providers that own their data centres will offer a variety of cloud server specifications. More importantly, they will be able to discuss your requirements and ideally recommend a bespoke solution tailored to your business needs.

In terms of infrastructure you need to read the small print and the service level agreement (SLA). A starting point is multiple self-healing, highly redundant high-speed SAN storage and at least 99.99 per cent up time.

Speed of set-up is important, as is general customer service and support. One of the easiest ways to check on the quality of support and customer service of a cloud provider is a quick look at internet reviews. A good cloud provider will have staff on site

within their data centres 24/7/365. They’ll also put you through to an expert straight away, if that’s what you need, rather than direct you via a call centre.

Cost With reliable like-for-like comparisons difficult to make, judging which cloud hosting provider will deliver the most cost-effective solution is not always easy. If the solution is obviously cheap, it’s cheap for a reason. It could be the technology, infrastructure, service, support, or a combination of factors that allows the provider to keep the price down.

Price is of course important and often the main driving factor behind cloud adoption, but your data and applications that help you run your business are also critical. The bottom line is don’t expect premium level service at discount-store prices.

Maturing marketCloud is certainly here to stay, but its adoption still has plenty of room to grow and the market is still maturing. So, will cloud computing become a commodity?

Maybe, but not for a while. Larger cloud providers may be starting to homogenise the product, but technology moves fast. Even if we achieve a recognised standard of a unit of computing today, it will almost certainly be something different in 10, 20 or 50 years.

There are benefits to standardisation. As well as setting out minimum quality specifications, it could also drive costs right down. Commoditisation also infers regulation, and effective regulation needs political acceptance and agreement across a wide spectrum of interested parties. Full commoditisation has also, in the past, lent itself to monopolisation, and in the UK, the experience with some utility industries hasn’t exactly been a shining example to work towards.

Commoditised, regulated and standardised, or left to develop on its own, the cloud has significant benefits to offer, many of which are still to be seen. About the authorDuring his career Peter Elgar has worked for software developers, business software resellers and IT services providers. A commercially published author, in recent years Peter has closely followed the rise of cloud computing and cloud-based applications. He currently works for UK hosting specialists CWCS Managed Hosting.

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