Cisco Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud 4.3.1 White Paper
For InFrastructure & operatIons proFessIonals
the Forrester Wave™: private cloud solutions, Q4 2013
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© 2013, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
November 25, 2013
critical or high priority. Currently 33% of this group has adopted internal private cloud. Source: Forrsights
Hardware Survey, Q3 2013.
3
Today the term private cloud is incorrectly used to describe both internal and external environments that
often fall short of the core requirements necessary to carry the cloud label. Forrester covers four common
approaches to private cloud in the following report. See the October 28, 2013, “
approaches to private cloud in the following report. See the October 28, 2013, “
” report.
Both software-only and converged infrastructure environments carry the term private cloud. This report
covers software-only solutions. If you’re interested in learning more about converged infrastructure
products, Forrester covers this set of products in its two-part market overview. For more information, see
the September 6, 2013, “
covers software-only solutions. If you’re interested in learning more about converged infrastructure
products, Forrester covers this set of products in its two-part market overview. For more information, see
the September 6, 2013, “
” report
and see the September 11, 2013, “
” report.
4
Forrester profiles a private cloud strategy that emphasizes the I&O professional’s vision of private cloud and
its potential benefits. For more information on this enhanced virtualization scenario, see the October 28,
2013, “
” report.
Forrester found that among enterprise hardware decision-makers, the top reported driver for internal
private cloud adoption was improved manageability (80%) of its virtualized environment. Source:
Forrsights Hardware Survey, Q3 2013.
private cloud adoption was improved manageability (80%) of its virtualized environment. Source:
Forrsights Hardware Survey, Q3 2013.
North American and European enterprise hardware decision-makers reporting private cloud adoption.
Eighty percent represents the combined responses of 5 and 4 on the importance of various drivers for
internal private cloud adoption from a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 representing very important and 1 representing
not important.
Eighty percent represents the combined responses of 5 and 4 on the importance of various drivers for
internal private cloud adoption from a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 representing very important and 1 representing
not important.
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Over the past year, Forrester has interviewed and surveyed hundreds of self-proclaimed private cloud
creators and found that most of their environments fall short of delivering the autonomy, agility, or cost-
efficiency of public IaaS environments. For example, only 31% of self-identified private cloud solutions offer
self-service access for end users. In fact, 35% of private cloud offerings reserve self-service access for cloud
admins while end users either submit formal requests or tickets — that’s not a cloud. Only 13% of the self-
identified private clouds met all of Forrester’s core criteria. Don’t accept a cloud in name alone. Start honing
efficiency of public IaaS environments. For example, only 31% of self-identified private cloud solutions offer
self-service access for end users. In fact, 35% of private cloud offerings reserve self-service access for cloud
admins while end users either submit formal requests or tickets — that’s not a cloud. Only 13% of the self-
identified private clouds met all of Forrester’s core criteria. Don’t accept a cloud in name alone. Start honing
your own cloudwashing detector. If the reported time-to-value is between two hours and two days rather
than the public cloud standard of 15 minutes, it is not a cloud. For more information, see the May 8, 2013,
” report.
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Business-aligned developers are aggressively leveraging public cloud platforms to build and deploy new
elastic applications and to extend legacy capabilities. They have come to expect speed, choice, and cost
transparency. Meanwhile, nearly half of enterprise IT shops claim to be building a private cloud in 2013.
transparency. Meanwhile, nearly half of enterprise IT shops claim to be building a private cloud in 2013.
The future enterprise IT infrastructure is therefore a hybrid mix of public and private clouds, but who will
manage this new IT portfolio? Today, cloud developers are often doing it themselves out of necessity, but
they should be focused on coding and testing, not cloud service management. Infrastructure and operations
they should be focused on coding and testing, not cloud service management. Infrastructure and operations
(I&O) professionals have the operations management skills, but they have not yet earned the right to take