The Cloud: Private vs. Public

It was a case of pubic versus private at the IP expo event in London last week. Which cloud is best for the enterprise?

The public cloud came under some serious scrutiny. Michael Canellas, CEO of Acadia, believes the public cloud will not win over enterprises due to companies worrying about the security of their infrastructure.

Tim Pitcher, international region vice president at 3Par, was dismissive of Canellas’ notion. “This simply isn't true. The cloud market [a considerable part of which will be made up by the public cloud] is forecast to reach $45bn [£28.6bn] per year over the next three years."

Pitcher also pointed to the very real take-up of the public cloud that was already happening. "Look at the companies which have set up in the cloud, they wouldn’t have done so if security concerns around the public cloud were real," said Pitcher. "For example, people buy goods through Papal on a daily basis – this runs on 3Par in a shared service infrastructure; Salesforce.com is also entirely cloud-based."

The middle ground was pitched by Simon Hansford, VP of UK-based services provider Attend. He believes that ‘multiple clouds,’ meaning public and private, will be the way most businesses go. Gone are the days where only the big players will be in control of the future (i.e. Microsoft, Amazon and Google).

"…I think there will be thousands of clouds, each with their own advantages, features and abilities." He said. In other words – the hybrid cloud. "The corporate enterprise will have applications all over these places.”

Basically, everyone needs a cloud – the choice is yours.