We have been writing quite a bit here about how the public and business sector are defining the cloud. Here is another useful look at the cloud and how it can be positioned in the range of IT options. Ruben S. Montero provides a quadrant for sorting things out.
The two dimensions he espouses are local vs remote (where are resources located?) and physical vs. virtual (where are resources provisioned?).
It is nice to see the options fit in the classic 2 x 2 table. It is also useful to clarify that the cloud is not simply remote provisioning, despite what some providers are claiming. Ruben uses his table to show the movement connected with the three major resource provisioning options (other than your own chip-and-mortar data center) employed today.
As Gartner's Lydia Leong recently wrote, "If you worry about hardware, it's not cloud, even if it is remote." As they added, "...if it's not on-demand, seamless, and nigh-instant, it's not cloud."
Classic IT outsourcing involves a movement from on-site to remote systems, but stays within the physical world of data centers. Cloud outsourcing goes all the way across the grid to move from local and physical to remote and virtual. The hybrid cloud moves from local virtual to remote virtual. Each represents different challenges and opportunities.
One fulcrum for tipping off any given Cloud approach is that of authority and governance. By looking at the way the business or market wants to pay for the solution, and defines and manage service levels, you get a pretty good picture of whether or not a Cloud model is needed (or just virtual hardware/grid is needed) and which type of cloud would make a better target depending on security, authority and control factors (Private vs. Public). Of course, these distinctions will continue to abound.
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