Bringing cloud computing back to Earth

 
What strategic decisions can vendors make to capitalise on the Cloud trend?  With every major technology player claiming to have a cloud strategy or offering, how can management teams cut through the noise to decipher the cloud conundrum?Cloud: The basics
In a remarkably short time, cloud computing has emerged as a hugely important evolution in the way that businesses and individuals consume and operate computing. It’s a fundamental shift to an operational model in which applications don’t live out their lives on a specific piece of hardware and in which resources are more flexibly deployed than was the historical norm. 
For the channel community, using an open source methodology can accelerate cloud adoption by validating key cloud specifications and sharing information to build confidence in cloud computing technology as formalised standards are made available.  Whilst there is no question that the role of the traditional channel will be significantly impacted by the rapidly evolving on-demand services market, there is still plenty of room for innovative channel organisations to operate and succeed.
The Burgeoning Cloud Ecosystem
Traditional value-added resellers (VARs) and systems integrators (SIs) that major on legacy, onsite, and server deployed technology are obviously at risk from the flexibility, cost effectiveness and simplicity of cloud services. Software as a Service (SaaS) and cloud computing reduce the marginal costs which historically represented the primary profits of traditional VARs and SIs. With foresight, there are still strategic decisions which VARs and SIs can make to overcome these challenges and capitalise on this revolution in technology procurement and consumption. 
By up-skilling to close the gap between the wide variety of cloud offerings and the needs of specific customers, SIs re-engineer to add value in the cloud channel ecosystem. SIs themselves can also benefit from the cloud as a testing ground for future implementations and as a repository for information.
Extending this concept further, third parties can build their own technology on PaaS offerings- accessing fully developed and advanced platforms for the creation of customer or industry specific offerings.
Finally, for a reseller, the cloud ecosystem simply offers a new market and pent up demand from which they can capitalise. As cloud offering move into majority, vendors recognise the need to build a solid reseller channel to survive. For the reseller this provides a perfect opportunity to partner with cloud providers that pass on added value to their end customers. In contrast to legacy technology, resellers can move into the cloud market without having to learn the intricacies of development or maintenance.
ISVs & Developers
For ISVs and developers looking to move technology into the cloud, a major consideration is the ability to develop applications that can be scaled and developed within the context of a cloud infrastructure. Route to market and quality of deployment are all at the heart of successful development, therefore any cloud partner must provide the tools and infrastructure to on-ramp quickly within a framework that ensures that software can be developed once and then rolled out across environments- from the data centre to the cloud.
Cloud ProvidersFor those organisations that are looking to build public cloud deployments, a series of factors will contribute to their success. Firstly, the technology to create layers of the cloud stack, whether that be Infrastructure or Platform as a Service.  Secondly, the flavour of cloud being developed and the consistency of technology between the enterprise and the cloud.  Thirdly, developers also need the certainty of support to ensure peace of mind for end users.
Through the Certified Cloud Provider Program, Red Hat established the industry's first program to certify that vendors have validated cloud capabilities and support processes that provide rapid problem resolution. Red Hat has expanded the program to include new partners IBM, NTT Communications and Savvis, and introduced new benefits, including cloud specific offerings and pricing and innovative management and updating services. 
In conclusion, there is no doubt that the cloud is changing the channel environment and the very nature of how various players interact, however with an open mind, flexibility and new alignments, the channel can thrive in this new ecosystem.