Virtualisation and cloud — bedfellows or alternatives?

In preparation for the Forum's Cloud Conference in March 2010 attendees were surveyed as to their maturity in this area, the results of this survey have been combined with a number of other Forum resources, to produce this interesting insight into the corporate IT world's view of cloud computing.

We are, arguably, in the early stages of a long-haul transition from traditional IT to cloud computing. Or at the least on the way to a mixed model of corporate IT, in which consolidation through virtualisation vies (or dovetails) with outsourcing (including cloud) to set the main strategic line of march.

As a term, 'cloud' encompasses a wide range of services, from basic platform capacity to sophisticated business process support. For some large organisations, it is not a question of whether to 'move to the cloud', but when and how? Yet there is a wide range of concerns, including over security and reliability.

Drawing on responses to a survey carried out in conjunction with the Forum's first Cloud Computing conference (March 2010), this report also puts the discussion in the context of recent intellectual ferment in the Forum, as evidenced in our 'CPI Reality Cycle' survey (January-December 2009), 'Reality Checkers' (on Client Computing Models, Virtualisation, and SaaS), and questions and answers (Q&As).