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Start-ups advised: Widen exposure, get mentorship

Bernie Trudel, chairman of Asia Cloud Computing Association and cloud CTO of Cisco Systems APAC, said Asia on the whole "is still at the early stage of adoption so we expect to see all types of hot spots" in terms of cloud computing adoption.

"For example in some countries like Japan, we are seeing a strong acceptance of cloud computing by consumers and SMBs but little adoption amongst larger private and public enterprises. In Australia, on the other hand, we are seeing a greater level of acceptance of cloud services across the whole spectrum of enterprises but not so much by consumers," said Trudel.

"For cloud start-ups, exposure, exposure, exposure. For SMBs I would advise getting beside a mentor who has experienced going to cloud."   -- Bernie Trudel, chairman of Asia Cloud Computing Association

"In India we are witnessing a greater level of acceptance of infrastructure-as-a-service, while in China the market seems to be driven more by software-as-a-service. We expect the adoption rate to mature over the next two to three years as the benefits of cloud computing become more apparent," he added.

Here is Trudel's advice for businesses that are starting to build cloud computing capacity at their organizations: "Like most new paradigms in IT, developing cloud computing as part of the overall IT strategy is the best way forward. For cloud start-ups, exposure, exposure, exposure. For SMBs I would advise getting beside a mentor who has experienced going to cloud."

"Moving to cloud is not an all or nothing big bang approach, pick what you want to move or build and do it in a way that works for you and your customers," advised Microsoft's Grady to cloud computing business start-ups. "If you treat cloud as an augmentation to what you currently have in terms of process, market and reach, you will find that it can create new markets and new opportunities that may not have been possible with a typical on premise solutions."

Future paths of cloud computing

Cloud computing is a new IT delivery methodology, not a separate technology category, said Trudal. "Although it [cloud computing] leverages new IT technologies in order to achieve its five essential characteristics on-demand self-service, 2) broad network access, 3) resource pooling, 4) rapid elasticity, and 5) measured service. For example, server virtualization technology enables cloud providers to build pools of x86 servers that can be leveraged for resource pooling."

Trudal observed that in recent years, "[t]here has been a lot of development activity in the area of automation and orchestration technology, which allow cloud operators to implement rapid elasticity." "We are also witnessing the evolution of IT service portals to meet the requirements of self-service, as service management becomes an important factor for the successful adoption of a cloud computing."

In the next five years, Trudal predicted that there will still be plenty of room for innovation in the area of cloud computing, "but consumers will start to ask for standard offerings so the innovation will be relegated to add-ons to those offerings."