For the past few months I have not been writing much on this blog as I have concentrated on my academic writing. The first output from this project is now available:  A critical review of cloud computing: researching desires and realities via Journal of Information Technology – Table of Contents.

Through a review of literature and from evidence based on interviews with around 50 industry players, we identify a set of “desires” for those seeking to go to the cloud (split into two dimensions technological desires, and service desires:

The technological dimension of cloud desire

Equivalence:  The desire to receive a technical service which is at least equivalent (in terms of security, latency and availability) to that experienced when using a locally running traditional IT systems.

Variety:  The desire to receive a service which provides variety corresponding with the use for which the service will be put.

Abstraction:  The desire to receive technical services which abstract away unnecessary complexity for the service they provide.

Scalability: The desire to receive a service which is scalable to meet demand.

The service dimension of cloud desire

Efficiency:  The desire to receive a service that helps users be more efficient economically.

Creativity:  The desire to receive a service which aids innovation and creativity.

Simplicity:  The desire to receive a service which is simple to understand and use.

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A critical review of cloud computing: researching desires and realities

Will Venters and Edgar A Whitley

J Inf Technol advance online publication, August 14, 2012; doi:10.1057/jit.2012.17

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Abstract:

Cloud computing has become central to current discussions about corporate information technology. To assess the impact that cloud may have on enterprises, it is important to evaluate the claims made in the existing literature and critically review these claims against empirical evidence from the field. To this end, this paper provides a framework within which to locate existing and future research on cloud computing. This framework is structured around a series of technological and service ‘desires’, that is,  characteristics of cloud that are important for cloud users. The existing literature on cloud computing is located within this framework and is supplemented with empirical evidence from interviews with cloud providers and cloud users that were undertaken between 2010 and 2012. The paper identifies a range of research questions that arise from the analysis.