What is dynamic cloud?

Share this post:

This week at the IBM Pulse 2014 Conference there has been quite a bit of talk about the composable business and dynamic cloud, and I’ll be writing a two-part series on both. In this blog post we’ll focus on dynamic cloud.

Is it hybrid cloud? Is it infrastructure as a service (IaaS)? Is it platform as a service (PaaS)? Is it software as a service (SaaS)? Maybe it’s business process as a service (BpaaS). Read along to find out what other thought leaders think about dynamic cloud.  I’ll share my view of dynamic cloud and encourage you to share your thoughts as well.

Dynamic cloud insights from cloud thought leaders

I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with several IBM Redbooks cloud computing thought leaders who also attended the IBM Pulse Conference. I asked each of them what dynamic cloud means to them. There are some different insights in each of the responses but overall there is a fairly common theme. Here’s what they had to say.

Dr. Rob Phippen said that with dynamic clouds “There’s really no physical barrier for a business to scale up its cloud-based business to meet customer need as fast as the market demands. This is an absolutely enormous opportunity for businesses. Imagine a world where there really are no limits to how fast you can grow your business.”

Gary Zeien also had a very thoughtful response saying, ” Flexibility, adaptability, scalability:  those are the capabilities that dynamic cloud brings to bear. Dynamic clouds enable these by providing policy driven monitoring that feeds analysis, that in turn executes actions to add or remove compute, networking or even storage resources as needed to maximize performance while minimizing costs.”

A few other notable insights:

Sarit Sotangkur:

“Dynamic cloud is the ability for software and services to grow with your business. Sometimes that means automatically adjusting itself to adjust to changes in demand or workloads.”

Frank Bauerle:

“Dynamic cloud allows business to be more agile in how it responds to changes in the market.  It allows a business to quickly develop through composing new applications using prebuilt components.”

Over the last few days, there have been several other blog posts that have also explored the topic of dynamic cloud. Fellow thought leader Ron Kline recently posted “Hybrid cloud is here (and its future is dynamic)” in which he says, “A dynamic cloud provides choice and flexibility. Businesses can pick the best application for the job, regardless of delivery platform.”

IBM Sr. Vice President Robert LeBlanc, in his post, “Rethinking IBM: The Company as a Service,” says “We’ll offer a dynamic cloud environment where all of the technology resources and data assets of an enterprise are readily available, integrated with one another, and deliverable in the way that suits the organization’s needs—whether in on-premises systems, or private or public clouds.”

My perspective on dynamic cloud

In the competitive environments today, businesses need to continuously evolve, innovate and re-invent themselves to succeed. The business leaders, developers and IT managers have immense pressure to keep up with the speed of the business.

So, back to the question: What is dynamic cloud? Is it hybrid? Is it IaaS? Is it PaaS? Is it SaaS? Is it (BpaaS)? My answer is YES!

There are many definitions of hybrid cloud: private, public, on-premises, off-premises, managed, self-service, physical, virtual and more. Being able to integrate and provide a seamless experience across these views of infrastructure as a service, the dynamic cloud, based on open standards, allows the IT manager meet the fast changing demands of the business.

Developers are under constant pressure from the business to quickly build and deploy applications. To support these developers, the dynamic cloud allows them to get speed, efficiency and access to services that they’ve never had before. They can build applications from composable services in record time with platform as a service capabilities such as IBM Bluemix.

Business leaders are more dependent on technology than ever before to achieve their business goals. Whether it’s the chief marketing officer who needs to better engage with customers or the HR manager who needs to attract the right talent based on their organizational dynamics, software as a service allows these business leaders to quickly address their needs.

Dynamic cloud gives companies what they need, where they need it and how and when they want it. Dynamic cloud is the foundation of the composable business; it allows relentless innovation at the speed of business.

Share your thoughts on dynamic cloud in the comments below or engage in the conversation with me on Twitter @MattLobbes. I look forward to hearing what dynamic cloud means to you and how you will use it as the growth engine for your business.