Gartner: Cloud computing will become bulk of IT spend by 2016

The use of cloud computing is growing, and by 2016 will increase to become the bulk of new IT spend.

In the words of analyst firm Gartner, 2016 will be a defining year for cloud as private cloud begins to give way to hybrid cloud, and nearly half of large enterprises will have hybrid cloud deployments by the end of 2017.

Gartner describes cloud computing as a style of computing in which scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered “as a service” using Internet technologies, heralding an evolution of business in positive and negative ways.

Speaking ahead of his presentation at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo on the Gold Coast next week, vice president and Gartner Fellow David Mitchell Smith said that overall, there are very real trends toward cloud platforms, and also toward massively scalable processing.

“Virtualisation, service orientation and the Internet have converged to sponsor a phenomenon that enables individuals and businesses to choose how they'll acquire or deliver IT services, with reduced emphasis on the constraints of traditional software and hardware licensing models,” Smith said.

“Services delivered through the cloud will foster an economy based on delivery and consumption of everything from storage to computation to video to finance deduction management.”

Down Under, cloud services revenue is projected to have a five-year projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.3 percent from 2012 to 2017 across all segments of the cloud computing market.

Segments such as software as a service (SaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) have even higher projected CAGR growth rates of 23.6 percent and 24.5 percent.

“Cloud computing continues to grow at rates much higher than IT spending generally," added Ed Anderson, research director, Gartner.

"Growth in cloud services is being driven by new IT computing scenarios being deployed using cloud models, as well as the migration of traditional IT services to cloud service alternatives.”

Echoing Anderson's comments, Smith claimed there is a flawed perception of cloud computing as one large phenomenon.

"Cloud computing is actually a spectrum of things complementing one another and building on a foundation of sharing," he said.

"Inherent dualities in the cloud computing phenomenon are spawning divergent strategies for cloud computing success.

"The public cloud, hybrid clouds, and private clouds now dot the landscape of IT based solutions. Because of that, the basic issues have moved from ‘what is cloud’ to ‘how will cloud projects evolve’.”

Smith claimed that private cloud gets a lot of attention and is today the most popular form of cloud across various sectors.

However, private cloud is not appropriate for all services and, while the majority of midsize and large enterprises will deploy private cloud services over the next few years, private cloud will only be used for specific services.