A recent report from Forrester shows that Enterprises are scaled to invest heavily in Private Cloud solutions in 2014. The report is a refresh from the original released in Q2 of 2011. The Cloud has had significant enough impact since the original report to warrant an update. Forrester used a 61-point criteria evaluation to identify the top software providers for the Private Cloud. Among those were VMWare, Microsoft, CA, Citrix, and Cisco.
Despite big gains by Microsoft in 2013 through increased development intensity for Windows Azure, the company still falls a bit short behind HP and Cisco. But, as 2014 progresses and Microsoft continues its steady improvements that position could change significantly.
Leading the pack is HP. This is truly not surprising, particularly if you've been privy to the number of advances in HP's hardware and software for the Private Cloud. HP has been investing heavily in these areas. And, certainly, a vendor that can provide both the hardware and the software will continue to have a strong edge over vendors that only offer one or the other.
What's interesting to me, and I'm surprised that the Forrester report does not address this, is the lack of mention over the partnership between Microsoft and HP for the Private Cloud. I've done a significant number of webinars recently, covering the partnership in relation to HP hardware and management software combined with Microsoft's Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012. You can catch the webinar archives on the Microsoft/HP Private Cloud web site: Webinar archives.
Instead the report focuses on HP's Cloud System Enterprise Suite which is a standalone, Openstack management solution for the Private Cloud that is built on top of HP's own Cloud OS.
If you have a Forrester subscription, you can find the recent report here: The Forrester Wave: Private Cloud Solutions, Q4 2013
If you don't have a subscription, the report is listed at $2,495.00 US. Worth that price? Probably not.
