"There is no doubt that the federal government's support of cloud computing is driving additional demand," stated Paul Carmody, SVP, Product Management & Business Development at Internap, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. However, Carmody noted, "Enterprises are evaluating the cloud based on their own needs and the merits of the cloud offerings available to them."

Cloud Computing Journal: How fast will the last remaining barriers to enterprise-wide cloud adoption melt away - are secure public clouds feasible, for example, or only private ones?

Paul Carmody: We're seeing some enterprises move to the cloud immediately, especially for public-facing web applications. There are multiple reasons for this. For one thing, new applications are being developed and optimized to fit cloud environments right out of the gate. In addition, the cloud's provisioning flexibility, which lets organizations spin up instances on demand, and its ability to handle bursts of demand in an economically efficient way are both highly attractive features.

Broader enterprise adoption of public clouds is likely to happen over an extended period of time. First, legacy applications are often already running successfully on dedicated hardware. Until that infrastructure reaches a refresh point, there may not be an impetus to move it. Second, many legacy applications haven't been designed to leverage the cloud. Public clouds often have limitations on complex network topologies, and/or they don't provide a good mechanism for "vertical" scalability for applications such as databases, among others. While new applications are being designed to seamlessly slot into the cloud "out of the gate," existing applications were designed to suit infrastructure that was available at the time of their creation - and often before the cloud.

Instead of asking when enterprises will simply shift everything to the cloud, I think the more pragmatic question is how quickly enterprises will adopt cloud for use cases where it's appropriate. The reality is that even with the advent of the cloud, enterprises will continue to require multiple types of IT infrastructure services, such as managed hosting and colocation. The cloud adds yet another option to the mix. Enterprises will need to do the math on the use of clouds as compared to other IT platform alternatives to suit their specific cost and control requirements. For example, it may be more cost-effective to move to the cloud for an eCommerce application with spikes in demand but not for an application like ERP with fairly stable workloads.

With regards to security, a public cloud by design is inherently less secure than a completely dedicated customer infrastructure (that is appropriately managed). However, public clouds will no doubt continue to become increasingly secure over time. In most cases, they are already highly secure. Cloud hypervisors have proven isolation of guest operating systems and network traffic. However, cloud providers do need to increase the transparency of their systems and operating processes to improve enterprise confidence in security.

Cloud Computing Journal: What is the biggest new dimension of consumer cloud computing? Is it Cloud Telecoms, Cloud TV, Cloud Music, or what?

Carmody: Music, movies and photos are all poised for growth as consumer cloud applications. We're already seeing this shift take place, and it will only continue to grow as new applications like iCloud and others emerge. We're also seeing strong demand and growth in areas such as online gaming as well as eCommerce where ‘bursty' consumer demands make the cloud an ideal fit.

Cloud Computing Journal: How much of an influence on cloud adoption is the U.S. Government's continuing support of cloud strategies for all government agencies?

Carmody: There is no doubt that the federal government's support of cloud computing is driving additional demand. Government agencies will need outsourced IT infrastructure services to support their workloads, and that will be a great source of demand for the industry. Increased spending in the public sector will also give providers additional wherewithal to invest in their cloud platforms to make them even more feature-rich and secure.

That said, I don't believe that the federal government's decision to move workloads to the cloud will have a direct impact on whether businesses choose to use the cloud or not. Enterprises are evaluating the cloud based on their own needs and the merits of the cloud offerings available to them. Moreover, enterprises are looking at the cloud as a means to an end - a tool that can help them achieve their performance, flexibility and financial goals.

Cloud Computing Journal: What impact does the arrival of Microsoft, Oracle, Dell, IBM, Cisco and the other giants have on the smaller cloud players?

Carmody: I think that the larger players are serving an important function in validating the space. The fact that these major, established companies are investing in cloud services delivers a certain degree of confidence in the viability of the cloud. However, these companies won't necessarily dominate the industry. The opportunity is enormous, and medium and even smaller players will undoubtedly serve the market in a number of different ways, differentiating themselves based on various needs such as security and performance and even vertical markets, as we're starting to see now. In addition, these companies are often able to offer increased flexibility, product differentiation, deeper relationships with customers and attention to support in ways that are more difficult for larger companies simply due to sheer size.

Cloud Computing Journal: What can Cloud Expo attendees expect to see from you in Santa Clara?

Carmody: At Cloud Expo, we'll be showcasing our full cloud portfolio, including a range of private and public cloud options based on both VMware and OpenStack environments. The scope of our cloud offerings is unique in that it gives our enterprise customers the flexibility to cost-effectively move among various cloud services as their business and use cases evolve. We'll also highlight our performance optimization offerings - including our Performance IP^TM network, XIP^TM TCP acceleration and our Content Delivery Network - which underpin our entire IT infrastructure platform of colocation, managed hosting and cloud services. We differentiate ourselves on network performance and availability as well, with a 100% proactive uptime SLA. The performance of the network is inextricably tied to the success of cloud adoption; to fulfill the promise of the cloud, enterprise customers and their end users have to be able to quickly and seamlessly access their cloud-based applications and content! Visit us at Booth #730.