The Private Cloud Is Old Fashion Dead

THE (PRIVATE) CLOUD IS OLD FASHION (DEAD) Posted on May 22, 2018 by Yann Tromeur

And I am being polite, don’t say it too loud… Private Cloud is dead. Harsh ? I know, truth hurts.

I mean, do we still see a lot of people using typewriters? do you still use a 56k Internet? is fax our main communication tool for businesses ?

No, no y NO Señoras, Señores. Why not people still growing beards ? I digress, that is another topic.

Cloud is dead and private cloud is an even colder corpse.

Any technology, they come and they go. A better smartphone every three months, you cannot stop progress.

Most of the times they are staying among us, decaying or replaced / upgraded by better solutions.

Everyone/thing is replaceable after all. Innovation is the keyword.

Private cloud is dying at such a fast pace and investing more in hardware / service as a business strategy is a dead end.

Of course, we still have a need for datacenters, datastorage and processing, and its cheapest form is still that good old server.

New iterations such as blade technology and its latest form “Hyperconverged” simplify management and setup, optimizing at the same time its footprint (both physically and ecologically) : again,this is merely an upgrade, a small improvement.

Some businesses are still asking themselves if they are moving to the Cloud. I think it is a terrible question.

It is like asking yourself in 2005 : “Are we really going to use Internet?”.

You have not migrated to a Cloud yet ? Well just do it already, what are you waiting for ?

It’s cheap (remember that electricity bill for your server room and its 24/7 air conditioner… gone), it’s practical, it’s simple (no hard hardware and no heavy lifting).

And please, avoid that security / data location argument… do you think you can handle better hacking than Amazon or Microsoft provides?

Private Cloud, I am sorry. I love you, I made you.

I designed and managed you and helped you grow. yes with my own hands, brain and heart. You are a big boy now. Lots of customers, big rooms…

But Private Cloud, you are sluggish. You are not easily expandable, you are expansive.

We thought private Cloud was an iteration of the Cloud. Because we use the same terminology, some of the services, because we have remote users.

Private Cloud is just a rack (or racks) in a server room. It is not multi-regional, it does not have (or rarely) elasticity !

Private cloud is dead. Still don’t believe me ?

source: IDC

Private Cloud, you do not deserve your name ! It is not your fault, we named you wrong. You can’t be at the same level of AWS, Azure or Google Clouds… At best, you are one of their cousins. You are growing but you will never be tall.

source : Forbes

Public cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) is more than 3 times the size of the true private cloud market,says “Private Cloud Market Sizing and Forecast for 2015-2026”

You might argue, businesses feel more secure with having the data stored locally. Luxembourg is a typical example of such “IT nationalism”. But that is only because some countries do not have Public Cloud datacenters. Amazon, Microsoft and Google implement fast. Last one announced ? GCP will make of Zurich in 2019 its sixth region in Europe. Is the opportunity lost for a “bank country” such as Luxembourg ? We will see…

Then, when every country has one of the Big Public Cloud Provider datacenter, tell me what is the point private local Cloud infrastructure?

More, the rise of AI, Blockchain and serverless technology will nail the coffin of the Private Cloud.

With the guaranteed rise of automation, distribution and smart machines (from switches to servers, all will be concerned in a couple of years), the system will be even more secured and scalable, predict its usage, potential threats and self manage in consequence. Those saving time technology won’t spread to Private Cloud sufficiently fast.

Our personal and business needs do to go toward a desktop or a server technology anymore. Your IT needs to be :

Mobile and Versatile Fast and smart Distributed and Secured

Private Cloud will disappear.

Next time you will hear about it, we will say “Hybrid”. Our datacenters will serve as backup mainly for storage or slow computing, as you do for an old server. This is smart and sustainable too!

Though, I am still listening to my vinyls from times to times. So you never know, Private Cloud might rise from the dead.