Private Cloud OS – Fundamental Shift?
In speaking with a number of customers lately about their intention on Private Cloud OS, the beginning of a fundamental shift may be occurring. Customers are considering moving away from VMware, moving to either Microsoft or OpenStack for their cloud OS. The resounding theme is either based around a perception of a more cost efficient and simplified hypervisor license structure, a perceived simpler path to hybrid, or a general interest in adopting a more open standards position.
To be fair, this is only preliminary insight and moving away from the cloud OS of choice (and hypervisor by default) is a significant change to the enterprise, but a change that many are starting to experiment with in their data center.
Many customers I speak to cite Microsoft Server 2012 as having the features and functionality, coupled with the integration of Microsoft Azure, to give them a path to an integrated hybrid cloud. They see a path to eliminating a cost for functionality that is already on premise with Server 2012.
Equally, customers who have migrated applications to LINUX recognize that the same trajectory is in place for OpenStack. Take a look at the job boards in enterprises for open standards developers, specifically for OpenStack developers, and you can begin to see the trend. Enterprises are looking to add open standards expertise into their data centers.
Whether this fundamental shift will occur, or whether market forces will interrupt this shift, remains to be seen. Microsoft, who holds a +70% market share of data center OS, is doing everything they can to provide an efficient and agile path to hybrid clouds. RedHat is quickly putting into place capability for rapid adoption of RedHat OpenStack. Both enjoy an advantage over VMWare due to their connection to the data center OS. VMware owns the market share of the hypervisor market, but will that be enough to control the Private Cloud OS as well?
It’s about to get interesting.
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