Gartner: Will Cloud Displace Internal IT Services For Data Centers?Gartner: Will Cloud Displace Internal IT Services For Data Centers?

Gartner Group's Tom Bittman writes, "While that does not mean that the majority of all IT services will be handled in the cloud, it does show that the number of large organizations using some cloud services could be growing rapidly." How do you think you and your company stack up? Read on for highlights of Gartner's top-line findings.Gartner surveyed attendees at its recent Data Center Conference and got almost 500 responses -- mostly from very large companies -- to the question, "When do you expect to use some external cloud services in place of what could be internal IT services?" Here are some of the results Bittman blogged about under the heading "Data Center Executives See Clouds In Their Future":

"Interestingly, 20% said they already were using services in the cloud. We know there is experimentation taking place in the cloud today, but 20% sounds high to me." "Eleven percent said 'Never.' I'm sure these are organizations where IT is seen as a differentiator, or where security and compliance are absolutely critical. However, 11% sounds high to me...." "More than half believe that they will be using external cloud services in place of what could be internal services with two years -- and about two-thirds by 2012." It's an eye-opening piece from Bittman, but one comment he made about the 11% who said "never" left me scratching my head: Bittman speculates these could be organizations "...where security and compliance are absolutely critical." So does that mean there are some very large organizations where data-center security and compliance are not absolutely critical? But clearly the bigger point in Bittman's post is how the three-way intersection involving the cloud, data centers, and IT services is rapidly becoming a very busy place.