Special Features:
WILL SERVICE-CENTRIC COMPUTING
CREATE GRID OPPORTUNITIES?
The past several years have seen an explosion in the number of servers
deployed worldwide. However, the costs to acquire, deploy, and maintain this
infrastructure are weighing down the productivity gains associated with
introducing technology into the business process. In order to reduce these
costs and rationalize today's enterprise infrastructure, market attention is
shifting toward various conceptions of service-centric computing. According to
a new study presented today at IDC's Directions 2003 conference, service-
centric computing is poised to reshape corporate infrastructure by
reorganizing the data center and recalibrating productivity.
Fundamentally, the concept of service-centric computing is about shifting
the
focus from infrastructure (e.g., hardware and software) to the business
services delivered to the user (e.g., email, supply chain management, etc.).
In other words, service-centric computing describes the ability to deliver
server, storage, and network resources to the business unit or end users in a
manner that is fully accountable, metered, and always available irrespective
of end-user demands and needs. Grid computing may well prove to be critical to
this vision.
"We expect the idea of service-centric computing -- or focusing on IT
services
and abstracting the complexity out of day-to-day infrastructure operations --
to slowly build momentum throughout the next few years. The service-centric
concept holds deep potential to not only lower the capital and operational
costs of a data center, but also to impart that infrastructure with the
increased availability and agility to respond to an ever-changing business
environment," said John Humphreys, senior research analyst with IDC's Global
Enterprise Server Solutions Program. "It is this powerful combination of cost
reduction and a high-level focus on business services that will ultimately win
over users, though we fully expect adoption to be incremental and proceed at a
vigilant pace."
Part of what is bringing service-centric computing into focus is the
emergence
of three distinct product categories -- monitoring/management, automation, and
virtualization solutions.
System monitoring and management functions are critical to the collection
of
system and application service-level statistics. Products in this category
focus on providing system status through alert notification, event logging and
reporting statistics on a particular node.
Automation focuses on streamlining mundane, routine manual operations so
they
can be completed with a minimum of human interaction. The automation function
encompasses tools and concepts that range from simple resource provisioning to
full automation and autonomic computing.
Virtualization refers to the ability to view and manage individual
infrastructure assets as an aggregated pool of resources. IDC views
virtualization as delivering the combination of automation and provisioning
tools to enable users to experience a higher resource utilization rate at a
lower capital and personnel cost.
"IDC's view is that the service-centric computing market will develop
through
an iterative, incremental process, starting with a foundation of basic
monitoring and management tools and then evolving through provisioning to
automation and virtualization solutions," said Humphreys. "While it is still
unclear exactly how the market will unfold, IDC expects the total available
market for service-centric computing to be somewhere in the range of $3-4
billion dollars by 2006."
The IDC study, Service-Centric Computing: An Infrastructure Perspective,
Outlook and Analysis (IDC #28934), provides an overview of the concept of
service-centric computing, including definitions, a market segmentation, and
an examination of early markets and applications that have begun to gain
traction with users. The study culminates with two scenarios that examine the
total opportunity for service-centric computing components of server
management, automation and virtualization.
About IDC
IDC is the foremost global market intelligence and advisory firm helping
clients gain insight into technology and ebusiness trends to develop sound
business strategies. Using a combination of rigorous primary research, in-
depth analysis, and client interaction, IDC forecasts worldwide markets and
trends to deliver dependable service and client advice. More than 700 analysts
in 43 countries provide global research with local content. IDC's customers
comprise the world's leading IT suppliers, IT organizations, ebusiness
companies, and the financial community. Additional information can be found at
www.idc.com.
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