Top 3 Challenges in Cloud Computing:
1. Navigating the vendor hype. Today everyone is selling cloud solutions and everything from a simple API to an archive platform is being called a “cloud platform”. As an organization seeking to embrace cloud computing the challenge is separating the hype from reality.

2. Avoid vendor lock-in. Many cloud solutions are based on custom and proprietary REST APIs or hardware. These solutions lock the service provider into a single vendor solution and put the provider’s future in the hands of a single vendor. Instead providers should look for options that support commodity hardware and standard data access methods. This removes the single vendor restrictions and enables differentiated offerings.

3. Differentiating your offering. Creating a copy of an existing cloud solution will lead to commodity competition on the basis of price and quickly becomes a race to zero. This is a losing strategy as the winner will be the organization with the largest scale. Instead service providers should speak with their customers and learn what offerings are of interest. Use this information and a flexible platform to create specific offerings that drive higher value (and revenues).

As far as trends are concerned, I see service providers risking losing business by not being able to offer up a cloud storage offering and allowing competitive cloud storage providers inroads into their accounts. And storage is a sticky service – once your competition is in your account, it is non-trivial to displace them.
In Q4 this year and the first half of next year, public cloud services will really breakout. Today the storage service buyer is faced with a few limited choices (Amazon S3, Rackspace, etc). Amazon’s S3 is a very credible solution, but it is a 1-size-fits-all-cloud. With archiving application and streaming application, you have one cloud. Many customers like what S3 offers, but it is a case of “you can have any color so long as it is black.”

Mike Maxey
Director of Product Management