A recent Gartner report about OpenStack is notable for its cautionary tone. Apparently, Gartner feels that the level of hype around OpenStack is causing folks to make decisions about cloud deployment strategy that aren’t yet warranted by what’s available.
I am actually bullish on the future of OpenStack, but I think there’s an instructive lesson for all of us in this report. The reason why we do clould in the first place is because we expect to reap benefits in terms of cost, flexibility, specialization, and so forth. Cloud technologies are at various points in the hype cycle, but CMPs are no longer so new that we can choose them based on intuition and buzz. Private cloud offerings today ought to be able to demonstrate solid ROI if they want serious consideration.
Cloud platforms are mature enough to expect “slope of enlightenment” ROI, at least for some problem domains. Image credit: Jeremy Kemp (Wikimedia Commons).
Moral: if you’re a decision maker evaluating possible choices, look for tangible stories like this one before you buy.
