FeaturesData managementStrategyInfrastructure

In an Asia Cloud Forum interview following the Hong Kong leg of CA World Expo held last month, CA Technologies’ Chief Technology Architect Trevor Bunker (pictured) was asked to gaze into his crystal ball and predict the fate of private cloud and public cloud in the next three years. In particular, he said the adoption of Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) will grow so significantly that it will eventually outpace the growth of public cloud. Read on to see how PaaS is being adopted in innovative new business models.

Trevor Bunker: Private cloud [adoption] is going to increase exponentially, and it will continue to go up.

Public cloud [adoption] will stay the same or it may even decrease. I think there’s still more hype in public cloud than there is reality in it. In fact, when people say about public cloud, what do they think of? Amazon [Web Services], Salesforce.com, Workday -- these were the same examples that we have been using for the last five years. And there’s a reason for not having new ones, and so I think public cloud [adoption] is stabilizing.

One key area of cloud computing that will grow significantly and outpace public cloud, is Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). There will be a growing number of specialty companies that offer infrastructure services, [coupled] with the right content for a particular market. We’re going to see niche providers servicing particular verticals. In fact, we’re already seeing companies merging to offer cloud-based services just for insurance companies with specialized content and intelligence.

General purposed infrastructure is interesting, but I don’t think there is a big future in it. As for PaaS that provides very specialized content for an industry, that’s where I think where the real money will be. 

Bunker: Private cloud is one of the easiest steps for companies to take, because it’s still within the premise. Also, it’s not that different from a shared service. Virtualization is the key to internal private cloud adoption, and most companies have already had virtualization initiatives today.

Automation is another key differentiation in private cloud, and companies have the ability to orchestrate that within their environments. It’s easier [to manage], there’s less security constraints, and less governance inside the company. 

Private cloud is also the easiest business case to make, as [hardware and systems] consolidation result in less expense. Companies will fund and invest in private cloud because they see a clear return [on investment].

Bunker: The reasons are around the barriers to adoption: security being the number one recognized barrier, and performance being the second. My personal belief about cloud security is, as an industry, we have the technology, the tools, and the knowledge to handle cloud security. This is by way of encrypting data, securing sessions, and tracking data.

What haven’t caught up yet, are governance and compliance. Are the policies and the controls for the auditors to safely commend secure [enough] to confirm that? Until the auditors can give businesses that sense of compliance, a lot of businesses don’t want to have that exposure to that risk. 

So that’s why we [CA Technologies] continue to focus heavily on security for the cloud, but we also focus heavily on working with government agencies and law/policy makers to help shape that policy. Last week, we testified to the United States Congress on cloud security policies. One of our distinguished engineers Tim Brown presented to the US Congress last week on cloud security challenges, and talked about how the industry needs help from the government from a policy’s perspective. This is because policy, law and governance have to match the technology. 

Bunker: The big difference for PaaS is going to be around specialized industry content. People will not continue to need general purpose [IT services]. They want subject matter experts specialized in their domain. And there’s where the real cost efficiencies will come.