Cloud and data fourth-quarter 2012 analysis

1. Summary

The last quarter of 2012 saw the rise of cloud-based databases, the continued interest in emerging cloud computing standards, the cloud awakening of software giants such as HP, the fall of public cloud prices, and many cloud outages that have put question marks around the use of cloud computing. Many enterprises found more IT dollars in their budgets and will focus on the cloud for much of that spending.

Cloud computing is moving from its hyped and honeymoon period to the reality that it’s a complex distributed system that will require some sound thinking within enterprise IT. We are getting to the “doing” part of the process, and money is actually flowing to cloud computing providers as growth continues.

Finally, while the enterprise focused largely on private clouds, interest in public cloud computing is greater than many analysts expected. This is due largely to the ease of deployment and lower costs of the public cloud and the ability to hide this from the enterprise-IT overlords.

Key highlights from the quarter include:

• A new focus on cloud-based databases, including the release of new database offerings from AWS
• The continued rise of OpenStack, including the support of a few key cloud computing players
• Hurricane Sandy and the U.S. 2012 presidential election as examples of where we might use predictive analytics to better predict outcomes
• The Pivotal Initiative, a new company from EMC and VMware that will focus on big data opportunities in the cloud